Promising Practices
The Promising Practices database informs professionals and community members about documented approaches to improving community health and quality of life.
The ultimate goal is to support the systematic adoption, implementation, and evaluation of successful programs, practices, and policy changes. The database provides carefully reviewed, documented, and ranked practices that range from good ideas to evidence-based practices.
Learn more about the ranking methodology.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children
Goal: The goal of this program is to help all students achieve academic success at the highest levels.
Impact: Results suggest that students in the Success for All schools were achieving at significantly higher levels on three of the four reading outcomes as measured by the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test Revised (WRMT-R).
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity
Goal: To educate consumers how to shop for health and to make healthy grocery shopping easy and enjoyable. To enable health professionals to educate their patients on shopping for health.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults
Goal: To determine whether the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which addresses food insecurity, can reduce health care expenditures.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to educate syringe users about access to clean syringes and proper medical waste disposal and to provide sharps containers and disposal sites to syringe users.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment
Goal: The goal of this program is to help high-risk youth develop marketable skills and to instill in students the values of dignity, responsibility and community.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Rural
Goal: The mission of the Teddy Bear Clinic is to decrease fear of medical professionals and the hospital environment, and to teach healthy habits at a young age.
Impact: The program has been highly regarded throughout the community, and we have had requests from parents outside the community to offer it to their schools as well. We are considering hosting two clinics for other schools to join.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health, Teens, Urban
Goal: To enable teens from disadvantaged circumstances to develop healthy behaviors, life skills, and a sense of purpose in order to prevent problem behaviors.
Impact: This program equips teens to better develop healthy behaviors and relationships,
develop life and leadership skills, and achieve educational
success.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders
Goal: The goal of this program is to provide a resource and referral service that could meet the needs of lower-income employees who might not be well served under a typical employee assistance program.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Older Adults, Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The goal of The Bridge Model of Transitional Care is to help aging adults transition from the hospital back to their homes and communities safely.
Impact: The Bridge Model of Transitional Care can help lower hospital re-admission rates as well as improve primary care engagement 30 days after being discharged from the hospital.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The program aimed to increase the rate of cervical cancer screening in Chinese women living in North America in response to research findings of significantly lower cervical cancer screening rates in Chinese women.
Impact: This intervention program found that women who received an intervention had cervical cancer screenings at a higher rate than those who did not receive any intervention. This shows that culturally and linguistically appropriate interventions might help improve Pap testing rates among Chinese women.