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, Health / Other Conditions, Adults, Older Adults
The program is focused on reduction of pain and improvement of function for arthritis patients unable or unwilling to attend small group ASMPs, which have proven effective in changing health-related behaviors and improving health status measures.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children
The goal of the HOPS program was to improve overall health status and academic achievement using replicable strategies.
The HOPS intervention helped students who qualified for free or reduced price meals both stay within the normal BMI percentile and score higher on their state math achievement test.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families
Program goals include prevention of negative birth outcomes (low birth weight, substance abuse, criminal activity, child abuse, and neglect), increased parenting skills, healthy pregnancy practices, and the use of social systems.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban
The goal of Healthy Families Palm Beach is to prevent child abuse and neglect.
The Healthy Families program improves birth outcomes, nurtures child development, prevents child abuse and neglect, improves family functioning, and help parents develop more positive beliefs in their parental roles.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults, Urban
The goal of Healthy IDEAS is to detect and address depression through effective, evidence-based screening and health promotion education.
Studies show that after 6 months in the Healthy IDEAS program, significantly more of the participants knew how to get help for depression (93% versus 68%), reported that increasing activity helped them feel better (89% versus 72%), and reported reduced pain (45% versus 16%) than at the beginning.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women
The initiative's primary purpose was to reduce infant mortality by 50 percent and generally improve maternal and infant health in at-risk communities.
20% of the Healthy Start program sites had significantly lower rates of low-birth-weight babies than their comparisons. 20% of the sites also had significantly lower rates of very-low-birth-weight babies than their comparisons. Four of the sites had significantly lower pre-term birth rates.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Older Adults
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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Urban
The goal of HELPS Programs is to strengthen students’ reading fluency so they will be better able to focus on and improve other important reading skills, including comprehension.
HELPS is a supplemental curriculum that improves students reading fluency, a commonly neglected aspect of children's core reading curriculum, in order to help them become successful readers.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families
HIPPY programs empower parents as primary educators of their children in the home and foster parent involvement in school and community life to maximize the chances of successful early school experiences.
Through 20 years of research, the HIPPY model has proven to be effective in improving school readiness, parent involvement in students' academic lives, school attendance, classroom behavior, and overall academic performance.