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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.

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Learn To Be ... Tobacco Free (Suffolk County, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use

Goal: The goals of this program are to prevent the next generation from becoming addicted to nicotine, to help those addicted to quit, and to reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke for all residents.

Livingston County Tobacco Control Program (Livingston County, NY)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use

Goal: The goals of this program are to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, decrease the social acceptability of tobacco use, and promote cessation of tobacco use.

Medical-Legal Partnerships: Investing in Social Services as a Core Strategy for Healthcare (New York City)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: New York City LegalHealth is a fruitful partnership that operates in 11 clinics of the city's public hospitals. One example is by supporting individuals in tenant-landlord disputes.

Impact: With an average of $225 per case, LegalHealth was able to effectively demand fixes in asthma patients' living conditions. This impact directly resulted in a 90% drop in emergency room visits and hospital admissions for this asthma patient group.

Network Therapy (New York, NY)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use

Goal: The goal of this program is to effectively treat substance abuse by using the patient's social support network to support abstinence.

Impact: Among Network Therapy clients, 64.5% of all samples submitted were negative for opioids, compared with 45.3% of all samples submitted by medication maintenance clients. Furthermore, 88% of urine samples were negative for cocaine for Network Therapy participants, compared with 66% of urine samples collected from treatment-as-usual clients.

New Directions for Youth (Los Angeles, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Public Safety, Teens, Families, Urban

Goal: The mission of New Directions for Youth is to provide comprehensive programs that help at-risk youth become productive, self-sufficient and healthy young adults, and create supportive family environments.

Niagara County Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (Niagara County, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce the impact of lead poisoning and to prevent new cases of lead poisoning among Niagara County children.

Northern Manhattan Start Right Coalition (New York City, NY)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the Northern Manhattan Start Right Coalition is to increase the timely vaccination coverage rate for the 4:3:1:3:3 series for children ages 19 to 35 months.

Impact: The Start Right Coalition increased timely vaccination coverage from 63.0% in 2002 to 96.8% in 2007.

Play Streets with Strategic Alliance for Health (SaFH) (East Harlem and South Bronx, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: To promote physical activity and healthy eating in resource-poor neighborhoods.

Preventive Health Program/ Hepatitis C Testing (Erie County, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: The intent of the practice is to decrease mortality and morbidity relative to Hepatitis A, B or C infection rate in Western New York.

Provider Intervention to Improve Colorectal Cancer Screening (Suffolk County, NY)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of this provider intervention is to increase provider recommendation and patient adherence to colorectal cancer screening in publicly-funded health centers.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. 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.
  2. 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:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.