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 / Adolescent Health, Teens
Goal: The long-term goals of the program are to arrest the development of teen antisocial behaviors and drug experimentation. Intermediate goals are to improve parents' family management and communication skills.
Impact: Parents had improved feelings toward their children and were less likely to react negatively to their children's behavior and less likely to take a "lax" approach to their children after participating in the program. They also showed improvements in the skill areas of tracking and reinforcing behavior, setting expectations and defining problems, and remaining calm in stressful situations. Antisocial behaviors in their children decreased significantly, measures of child adjustment showed improvement, and total problem behavior decreased. Furthermore, the PFS intervention resulted in significantly less use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve the individual oral hygiene practices of the prenatal women in order to reduce the number of low birth weight, pre-term infants born to this population.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women, Urban
Goal: The overall goal of the Prenatal Plus Program, combined with the Partners for a Healthy Baby curriculum, is to improve birth outcomes, decrease rates of child abuse and neglect, and strengthen families.
Impact: Reduced low birth weight rate through risk reduction during pregnancy.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Adults, Older Adults, Urban
Goal: The program’s mission is to meet community nutrition needs through programs for people living with HIV/AIDS, the homebound critically ill, and seniors.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to decrease alcohol, tobacco, and drug use and to decrease violence and weapons-carrying among high school students.
Impact: At 2-year follow-up, students in Project TND schools were about half as likely to use tobacco when compared with students in control schools. Students in Project TND schools were about one-fifth as likely to use hard drugs relative to similar students in control schools.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Adults, Urban
Goal: The goal of Project Ujima is to stop the cycle of violent crimes by reducing the number of repeat victims of violence.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults
Goal: The PHLAME Study had four primary goals: (1) Increase physical activity to 30 minutes each day; (2) Reduce percent calories from fat to less than 30%; (3) Increase servings of fruits and vegetables to at least 5 per day; and (4) Improve energy balance and normalize body fat.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the Promoting Heart Health in Women Municipal Workers program is to improve women’s knowledge of and perceived susceptibility to heart disease.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Urban
Goal: To promote water consumption with an educational and environmental intervention in elementary schools of deprived urban areas to prevent overweight.
Impact: This program shows that environmental and educational, school-based interventions can have effective impact in the prevention of overweight among children in elementary school, even in a population from socially-deprived areas.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults, Women, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of Promotores de Salud is to improve the delivery of healthcare to under-served Latinos by using trained community members (Promotores) to bridge the gap between Latinos and healthcare providers.