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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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The Fall-Asleep Pacifier (Finland)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Oral Health, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce the dental cavity rate among children.

The NineZero Project (Riverside, CA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Teens, Women

Goal: The goal of the program was to reduce Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and encourage zero alcohol use by pregnant women through educational and social marketing techniques for select target groups.

Impact: The NineZero program increased knowledge regarding FAS, and also showed that an approach with more emphasis on health education principles that have been shown to be effective in changing other substance use behaviors would have a more successful effect on attitudes, beliefs, and intentions.

The Stanford Five-City Project (California)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke

Goal: The goal of this project was to improve cardiovascular health of two California communities.

Yes We Can Urban Asthma Partnership (San Francisco, CA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Yes We Can Urban Asthma Partnership is to improve asthma control among low-income children with asthma.

Youth AIDS Prevention Project (Chicago)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

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

Goal: The goal of YAPP was to increase awareness of risky sexual behaviors and to reduce the risk of HIV and STD infection associated with such behaviors.

A Model For Increasing Availability Of Community-Based Cancer Trials (Maryland)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Rural

Goal: The goal of this program is to increase the availability of cancer trials and increase patient enrollment in cancer trials in an underserved rural community in Maryland.

Art Not Crime (Portland, Oregon)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Children, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: Art Not Crime promotes social sustainability by providing a safe place for individuals to create urban inspired pieces of art and display them where their art is appreciated as the language of this new culture and not classified as crime.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Increasing Tobacco Use Cessation: Mass Media Campaigns When Combined with Other Interventions (USA)

CDC

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults

Impact: The Task Force did not have enough evidence to determine whether the intervention is or is not effective. This does not mean that the intervention does not work, but rather that additional research is needed to determine whether or not the intervention is effective.

Community Building in Grinnell (Grinnell, IA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Civic Engagement, Rural

Goal: The primary goal of the CBIG initiative is two-fold: to systematically change the way young people and adults in our community perceive conflict and how they respond to and resolve disputes.

Community Partnership for Protecting Children (Jacksonville, FL)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Families

Goal: The goal of this program is to change the child protection field by demonstrating a new approach to safeguarding children and supporting families. Based on the premise that many people, agencies, and organizations in a community can contribute to children's safety, the initiative addresses child abuse and neglect by raising neighborhood awareness of child safety issues, empowering neighborhood residents to become more involved with families at risk of abusing or neglecting their children, strengthening locally based organizations and helping them form networks concerned with child safety, and fostering policy, practice, and organizational changes within public sector child protective services agencies. This approach is known as community child protection.

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.
Michigan Health Improvement Alliance