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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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Children and Neighbors Defeat Obesity (CAN DO) Houston (Houston, Texas)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Prevention & Safety, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of CAN DO Houston is to prevent childhood obesity in the Houston area by facilitating programs that encourage good nutrition, physical activity, and healthy minds.

Community Influenza Collaborative: Prevention and Surveillance (Cass County, ND)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: The initial goal of this group was to initiate communication between the private and public health care sectors in regards to influenza prevention planning. Once that communication was established and barriers were identified and addressed, the group identified the following goals: develop a common message for the general public regarding influenza vaccination, educate all health care providers regarding CDC influenza vaccination guidelines and encourage them to adhere to these guidelines, establish consistency in timing for vaccination clinics throughout the community and consistency in vaccination costs, and develop a local influenza surveillance system.

Community Nutrition and Urban Gardening (Riverdale, MD)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / School Environment, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of the program is to build sustainable, local, urban gardens, in order to deliver more reliable and better nutrition to today’s youth and urban communities.

Coordinated Asthma Referral and Education (CARE) Program (San Bernardino, CA)

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

Goal: The goal of the CARE Program is to raise community awareness about asthma, coordinate services within target communities, and help families learn how to control and manage asthma.

Diabetes-Based Science Education for Tribal Schools (DETS) (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the Diabetes-Based Science Education for Tribal Schools (DETS) curriculum is to slow or reverse the rising rate of type 2 diabetes in American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) youth through a pedagogy based in a combination of a science-based diabetes/health education curriculum and culturally relevant contexts.

Impact: Overall, the DETS curriculum shows that collaboratively-developed curriculums and education courses can have an effective impact across grade levels with students having significant knowledge gains, and can also serve as a supplement for other science and social science curriculums in schools.

Driving and Dementia Toolkit (Ottawa, Canada)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The goal of this toolkit is increase health care provider knowledge and confidence in assessing the driving skills of patients with dementia.

Early Care and Education Program (Los Angeles)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families

Goal: The Early Care and Education Program's goal is to provide the highest quality childcare and early education services to children from disadvantaged families.

Early Literacy and Learning Model (Florida)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education

Goal: ELLM aims to decrease literacy gaps in the K-12 system by improving emergent literacy skills through preschool curricula interventions, involving a multi-faceted approach of a rigorous classroom curricula, family involvement, a support system for the teachers, and ongoing assessment of current practices.

Educating and Delivering Financial Services to Low-Income, Underserved Residents and Businesses (Cuyahoga County, OH)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance, Families

Goal: The goal is to offer members of poor and underserved communities ownership in an established financial cooperative. By purchasing shares in the Faith Community United Credit Union (FCUCU), individuals gain access to services and learn the difference between using what belongs to someone else and owning their own institution.

EnLace (Leadership and Civic Engagement)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Public Safety, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural

Goal: In an effort to prepare and engage community residents to take a more participatory role in their communities, Monterey County Health Department (MCHD) developed and has offered since 2014 a leadership and civic engagement program (enLACE) that addresses the social determinants of health, community engagement and their relationship to the health of the community.

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.