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.

Submit a Promising Practice

Partners in Healing (Merced County, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the Partners in Healing Program is to improve health care and access to health services among Hmong refugees.

Partnership for Health (California)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: The goal of Partnership for Health is to reach HIV positive patients during regular doctor visits and increase their knowledge, skills, and motivations to practice safer sex.

Impact: Brief provider counseling emphasizing the negative consequences of unsafe sex can reduce HIV transmission behaviors in HIV-positive patients presenting with risky behavioral profiles.

Pathways to Housing, Inc. (NYC, DC, Philadelphia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of Pathways to Housing, Inc. is to provide independent housing, treatment services for physical and mental health, and employment to mentally ill individuals who are chronically homeless.

Impact: Pathways to Housing has received numerous awards for its projects in New York City, Philadelphia, and D.C. In addition to achieving large effects in terms of housing outcomes, compared with standard care in the community, Housing First also improves community functioning and quality of life.

Phoenix Healthy Homes (Phoenix, AZ)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Teens, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Phoenix Healthy Homes project was to use a multi-factorial approach to reduce hazard prevalence and improve self-reports of home safety and respiratory health.

Impact: The Phoenix Healthy Homes project showed that a tailored healthy homes improvement package significantly improves self-reported respiratory health and safety, reduces respiratory health and injury hazards, and can be implemented in concert with a mobile clinical setting.

Planet Health (Boston, MA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of Planet Health is to reduce childhood obesity among middle school students using a school-based interdisciplinary intervention focused on decreasing television viewing and consumption of high-fat foods, and increasing fruit and vegetable intake and moderate and vigorous physical activity.

Impact: These results cumulatively show that Planet Health and similar programs can reduce obesity and increase healthy food consumption in girls. They also show that a finding of a reduction in number of hours watching TV for girls can also predict reduction in obesity.

Playworks (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / School Environment, Children

Goal: The mission of Playworks is to improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

Popular Opinion Leader (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Urban

Goal: The goal of Popular Opinion Leader is to reach as many people as possible in order to successfully and dramatically reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Positive Choice: Interactive Video Doctor

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Adults

Goal: To eliminate or reduce sex risk behaviors and eliminate or reduce illicit drug use among HIV-positive clinic patients.

Positive Family Support Program (PFS) (Eugene, OR)

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.

Powerful Choices for the Environment (Washington)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Energy & Sustainability, Children

Goal: The program is designed to empower 6-8th grade students across the region with the knowledge that their everyday choices do make a difference. The program aims to influence how middle school students and their families think about and use natural resources in their daily lives.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

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.
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:

The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
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:

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.
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.
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.