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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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Wheaton/Warrenville Early Childhood Collaborative (DuPage County, IL)

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The mission of the Wheaton/Warrenville Early Childhood Collaborative is to effectively coordinate services focused on providing opportunities for learning success and improved Kindergarten readiness for all Community Unit School District 200 children birth to five, especially those most vulnerable.

The 4 goals of the WWECC are:
1. Improve communication among early childhood service providers though implementation of collaborative partner and sub-committee meetings.
2. Increase parent education about childhood development needs.
3. Increase professional development for early childhood service providers.
4. Increase children's Kindergarten/school readiness.

Impact: This targeted program can have a strong impact, as research shows that 85% of brain development occurs by age 5 and that high-quality early care and education experiences lead to lower drop-out rates, lower rates of becoming a teen parent, and lower rates of participation in special education.

Engage DuPage (DuPage County, IL)

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goals of Engage DuPage include improving the health status of self-pay Emergency Department patients, increasing the revenue appropriately owed to hospitals for services rendered, improving the financial assistance processes involving self-pay Emergency Department patients, and reducing the number of avoidable Emergency Department visits among self-pay patients.

Impact: By the end of 2014, 57% of all benefit applications that were submitted were approved. In addition, 29% of all interested patients were connected to a primary care provider through a Community Access Specialist.

Mailed Psychoeducational Intervention for Colorectal Cancer Screening (England)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve colorectal cancer screening rates among older adults.

Impact: Participants in the intervention group had significantly higher colorectal cancer screening attendance, as well as having more positive attitudes about screening and placing a higher priority on screening.

Addiction Center (Orlando, FL)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families

Goal: Addiction Center's goal is to find individuals and loved ones who are impacted by substance abuse and provide them with the most up-to-date information on addictions, substances, and recovery options.

Cervical Cancer Screening and Follow-up (Brevard County, FL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women

Goal: The goal of this program is to provide timely, effective, clinically appropriate intervention for abnormal Pap tests at no or very-low cost in order to reduce cervical cancer mortality.

Independent Transportation Network (Portland, ME)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The mission of this program is to provide a community-based, and community supported, economically viable and consumer-oriented, quality transportation service for seniors.

A Text Message-Based Intervention for Weight Loss (San Diego County, CA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults

Goal: To reduce weight in overweight and obese patients using mobile-based text and multimedia messaging.

Impact: At the end of a 4-month period, participants in the text-message based intervention showed greater weight loss than the control group.

Antismoking Media Campaign (Massachusetts)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens

Goal: To reduce the number of older adolescents who progress to established smoking.

Impact: The television component of the Massachusetts antismoking media campaign may have reduced the rate of progression to established smoking among young adolescents.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: Mass Media Campaigns (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety, Adults

Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends mass media campaigns to reduce alcohol-impaired driving under certain conditions. These conditions include carefully planned and well-executed campaigns; adequate audience exposure; and settings with ongoing alcohol-impaired driving prevention activities.

Emergency Department Means Restriction Education

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety

Goal: The goal of Emergency Department Means Restriction Education is to help parents and adult caregivers of at-risk youth recognize the importance of taking immediate action to restrict access to firearms, alcohol, and prescription and over-the-counter drugs in the home in order to lessen the risk of self harm.

Impact: The Means Restriction program shows that ED-based programs and provided practical information can help parents and adult caregivers of at-risk youth recognize the importance of taking immediate, new action to restrict access to dangers in the home.

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.
Impact DuPage