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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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Promoting Water Consumption in Schools to Prevent Overweight (Germany)

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.

Reach for Health Community Youth Service (New York City, New York)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Reach for health Community Youth Service program is to reduce risky sexual behaviors among urban Latino and African American youth.

Impact: Long-term impact has been recorded among participants after two years: this includes delayed initiation of intercourse and reduced frequency of intercourse among sexually active adolescents.

Reducing Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations Through Community Health Workers Integrated Into Primary Care: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Other Conditions

Goal: The goal of this study is to determine how many Community Health Workers (CHW) would be needed to reduce emergency department (ED) visits and associated hospitalizations among their assigned patients to be cost-neutral from a payer's perspective.

Impact: This study adds significant knowledge to the existing literature on CHW programs, and particularly provides critical information to payers that can be used for making decisions on appropriate payment models

SAHARA: A computer-based HIV intervention (Atlanta, GA)

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

Goal: SAHARA is a computer-based HIV intervention that targets African American women to promote healthy sexual behaviors to reduce the risk of HIV transmission.

Impact: These findings which demonstrate major improvements in HIV-preventive behaviors suggest that SAHARA is an effective evidence-based promising practice; it is inexpensive and only requires two hours.

Step-by-Step Approach to Sustain a Community Health Worker Intervention (Philadelphia, PA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality

Goal: To find, explore, and implement a sustainable funding stream for community-based healthcare interventions.

Vaccination Programs: Reducing Client Out-of-Pocket Costs

CDC

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

Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends interventions that reduce client out-of-pocket costs used alone or combined with additional interventions to increase vaccination rates among people of all ages in a range of settings and populations. This includes interventions for individual clinical settings, statewide programs, or national efforts.

Activate West Michigan Coalition (Grand Rapids, MI)

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

Goal: The goal of the Activate West Michigan coalition is to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among low-income individuals.

AIDS Insurance Continuation Program (Florida)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults, Families

Goal: The goal of the AIDS Insurance Continuation Program is to provide low-income Floridians living with HIV/AIDS with continuous private health insurance coverage.

Alameda County Food Scrap Recycling (Alameda County, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce food waste in order to achieve the ultimate Alameda County goal of a 75% landfill diversion rate by the year 2010.

Anchorage Youth Court (Anchorage, AK)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Urban

Goal: Anchorage Youth Court gives youth offenders personal accountability; youth attorneys good training and the opportunity to make a significant difference in others' lives; and the public an effective and comprehensive public safety system.

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.