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 Local, Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The primary goal of the GRP is to reduce youth gang crime and violence in targeted neighborhoods/communities by addressing the personal, family and community factors that contribute to juvenile delinquency and gang activity.
Filed under Local, Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Families
Goal: The goal of MDFT is to reduce adolescent drug abuse and increase self-efficacy in the teen population.
Impact: Systematic reviews comparing the effective of adolescent drug use interventions across studies found that MDFT reduces substance use, delinquency, behavior problems, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. The program has also been found to improve educational performance.
Filed under Local, Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults
Goal: The goal of Sugar Smart for Life is to reduce the rate of diabetes in our community by empowering those with prediabetes to make lifestyle changes that may prevent or delay onset of the disease.
Impact: These findings suggest that this technology-based intervention is well-received by patients at high-risk for developing diabetes in terms of satisfaction, delivering appropriate health education, and supporting and encouraging positive health behavior changes.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban
Goal: Atlanta Streets Alive seeks to shift the current car-centric dynamic and replace it with a proactive community that comes together on a regular basis to participate in active transportation, physical activity, cultural and artistic endeavors, and to enjoy our neighborhoods and communities from a different perspective-from the street.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to create a regional approach to emerging infection based on public education, environmental monitoring, and disease surveillance.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety, Teens, Women, Urban
Goal: The Centering Pregnancy Plus Project aims to reduce risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and improve health outcomes for young pregnant women, aged 14-21.
Impact: Facilitated group discussions promoting condom use among young women can increase condom use among participants.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children
Goal: Coaching Corps works to improve the health, educational, and social outcomes for children living in low-income neighborhoods by increasing access to high-quality sports activities.
Impact: Coaching Corps works to improve the physical, emotional and social health of girls and boys growing up in poverty and communities of color by mentoring through sports. To date, 3,000 volunteer coaches have "changed the game" for more than 30,000 children.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: Healthy Love seeks to provide a safe, culturally tailored intervention for heterosexual black women to reduce their disproportionately high risk of transmitting and contracting HIV and other STDs. Healthy Love aims to encourage sexual abstinence, HIV testing, and receipt of test results; increase women's condom usage during vaginal sex with male partners; and reduce the number of women's sex partners and unprotected anal and vaginal sex with male partners. Healthy Love also seeks to improve HIV/STD knowledge, self-efficacy for using condoms, intentions to use condoms, and attitudes towards condoms.
Impact: Healthy Love increased participants' likelihood of using condoms, being tested for HIV, and receiving their test results. The intervention also reduced participants' self-described actions with male partners that can increase black women's risks for HIV infection.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the HORIZONS program is to reduce sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), particularly HIV, by increasing condom use and partner communication about safer sex.
Impact: The HORIZONS program empowered African American female adolescents to pursue safer sex and reduced the number of STDs among those in the program.
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.