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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.

Practices that were submitted by local partners are listed first and will have a green box below them that indicates they are local. Users can also use the search features to find promising practices from across the country.

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Healthy Futures (Northwestern Lower Michigan)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Women, Families, Rural

Goal: The overall goal of Healthy Futures is to improve community health by ensuring access to health care and community resources for pregnant women and young children in the region.

Impact: In 2012, over 3,500 contacts, 970 home visits, and 30,000 educational mailings were delivered. Of those who initiated breastfeeding at birth, 67% of enrolled infants are still breastfeeding at eight weeks post-partum. Eighty-three percent of enrolled two-year-old children are fully immunized.

Healthy Generations Program (Washington, D.C.)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens, Families

Goal: The program aims to provide comprehensive, family-centered health care for adolescent parents and their children.

Healthy Habits (Washington)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Women, Families

Goal: Healthy Habits was designed to enhance the capacity of local WIC programs and partner agencies to promote healthy lifestyles in families with young children.

Healthy Hometown Restaurant Initiative (Louisville, KY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Teens, Adults, Families

Goal: The goal of the Healthy Hometown Restaurant Initiative is to encourage Louisville restaurants to provide and promote healthier meal options.

Impact: Participants that have volunteered for the Healthy Hometown Restaurant Initiative include 16 restaurants with 33 locations and one caterer.

Healthy Kids Express Screening and Immunization Program (St. Louis, Missouri Metro Region)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Families, Urban

Goal: The mission of HKES&I is to increase access to needed healthcare for children. This is accomplished through the goal of identifying children who need further follow-up, particularly for hearing and vision problems, and to connect them to those services.

Impact: Healthy Kids Express Screening and Immunization program is successful in providing evidence based care to low-income populations and for connecting those identified with screening needs to needed follow-up care.

Healthy Kids in Healthy Homes (Kern)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: To provide children and parents with the education and resources they need to improve their health.

Healthy Moves

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The mission of the program is to shape the evolving health system by developing and spreading high-value models of community-based care and self-management for diverse populations with chronic conditions.

Healthy Relationships

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Wellness & Lifestyle, Women, Men

Goal: The goal of Healthy Relationships is to reduce the risk of HIV transmission by people who know they are HIV-positive by reducing the frequency with which they have unprotected sex.

Impact: Healthy Relationships seeks to develop decision making and problem making skills to reduce the risk and transmission of HIV through behavioral intervention. An intervention study resulted in significantly less unprotected intercourse and greater condom use with lower estimated HIV rates post-intervention.

Healthy Steps for Older Adults (HSOA) (Pennsylvania)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Older Adults

Goal: The Pennsylvania Department of Aging offers this fall risk screening and prevention program to adults 50 years of age and older. The program is designed to raise awareness of falls, introduce steps on how to reduce falls, improve overall health, and provide referrals and resources.

Heaven's Loft (Little Rock, AR)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of Heaven's Loft is to encourage low-income expectant mothers to receive prenatal care, well-baby care, immunizations, health screenings, and educational classes on childbirth, breastfeeding, and infant/child care and parenting.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.

A Good Idea meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. The program evaluation is limited to descriptive measure(s) of success/accomplishment (i.e., program participation rates, number of services/education sessions/radio messages provided). Note: oftentimes, the program has been newly implemented and a program evaluation has not yet been conducted. Programs that have not yet been evaluated, but which show promise in improving health or quality of life, are classified as Good Ideas until an evaluation is conducted.

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.
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