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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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Alive & Free Prescription

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal of the Alive & Free Prescription is to keep youth unharmed by violence and free from incarceration, and to provide youth with the support and opportunities to build positive lives that contribute to society.

Arts Olympiad

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Environmental Justice, Children

Goal: To enhance academic performance and imbue global citizenship by nurturing children’s creativity, developing empathy, and instilling healthy lifestyles.

Asthma Home Visiting Program (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The Asthma Home Visiting Program aims to reduce asthma triggers present in the home.

Impact: Home visiting can help reduce asthma triggers in the home, decreasing symptoms, missed days of work or school, and emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

Bay Area SCORES (Bay Area, CA)

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

Goal: The goal of the Bay Area SCORES program is to reduce obesity, increase physical fitness, and manage cardiovascular health-related risks while improving academic performance in children between the ages of 6 and 12 through soccer, creative expression, service learning, “hip hop for health,” and creative writing.

Be Smart & Seal Them! (Washington)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Oral Health

Goal: The goal of the Be Smart & Seal Them! program is to provide dental sealants proven to prevent tooth decay to second grade students.

Bullying Prevention Program (South Carolina)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce bullying in schools.

CDC Communities Putting Prevention to Work: Increase Access to Cessation Services (Santa Clara County, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal is to increase cessation within communities with the highest tobacco use rates through culturally appropriate services provided through community-based organization partners.

Impact: The intervention has resulted in a 39% quit success rate.

Child Advocacy Center (San Francisco, CA)

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

Goal: The goal of the program is to offer comprehensive child abuse prevention and intervention as well as health care services in a single setting.

Child Day Care Facility Siting Review (Nassau, NY)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to ensure the health and safety of children attending day care facilities and the staff who care for them.

Child Development Project (San Francisco)

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

Goal: The central goal of CDP is to help schools become "caring communities of learners" by offering an environment of caring, supportive, and collaborative relationships to build students' sense of community in school and to promote school bonding.

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