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 Good Idea, Community / Transportation, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban
Goal: The project's mission is to encourage car free, carefree travel to and around Santa Barbara for cleaner air and a healthier planet.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Families
Goal: The Starting Right Initiative works to prevent, treat and reverse childhood obesity and malnutrition in low-income communities.
Impact: The Starting Right Initiative aims to encourage healthy eating habits in children and their families and works to reduce childhood obesity and malnutrition at seven project locations nationwide.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Adults, Urban
Goal: The mission of The Fortune Society is to support successful reentry form prison and promote alternatives to incarceration, thus strengthening the fabric of our communities.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Built Environment
Goal: The goal of the Green Map System is to cultivate citizen participation and community sustainability in hundreds of places around the world.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment
Goal: The goal of this program is to help move people from public assistance to employment.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Governance, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal is to reduce the frequency of accidental falls from apartment buildings.
Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Housing & Homes
Goal: The goal of this experiment is to estimate the effects of New York’s plan for supportive housing for high-need, high-cost Medicaid recipients.
Impact: Placing people who are homeless in supportive affordable housing paired with supportive services such as on-site case management and referrals to community-based services can lead to improved health, reduced hospital use, and decreased health care costs.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families
Goal: The goals of HFNY are to promote positive parent-child interaction; to ensure optimal pre-natal care; to promote healthy childhood growth and development; and to enhance family functioning.
Impact: Mothers participating in the HFNY study were significantly less likely to deliver low-birth-weight babies than mothers in the control group (3.3% vs 8.3%). HFNY parents also reported having engaged in significantly fewer acts of serious abuse and neglect.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance
Goal: The goal of the program is to increase access to financial services for low-income families as well as stimulate economic development in distressed neighborhoods.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases
Goal: The goal of this intervention is to prevent new STD infections.
Impact: The Safe in the City program shows that clinic waiting room videos displaying prevention knowledge and techniques can actually help to reduce the number of new infections of certain STDs.