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.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to enhance the life options of disadvantaged, urban high school students.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Older Adults
Goal: To provide transportation and improve patient satisfaction for nonemergency medical services.
Impact: CareMore's NEMT was so successful in the first 3 months, the programs were expanded in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Virginia.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Rural
Goal: The mission of the Caring Bear Picnic is to educate children and parents on how to live healthy lifestyles through hands-on activities.
Impact: For over 30 years, the Caring Bear Picnic has educated children and parents on how to live healthy lifestyles through hands-on activities.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The goal of Caring for Kids is to provide youth impacted by a loved one's substance use with the tools they need to stay safe and build a healthy life, and to reduce the likelihood that impacted youth will abuse substances.
Impact: In 2013, more than 250 youth were impacted by Caring for Kids. 90% of youth participants showed a decreased likelihood of alcohol or other drug use, and 100% completed an action plan.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children
Goal: CASASTART's primary goals are (1) to provide youths with the services and support they need to become productive, law-abiding citizens; and (2) to create a safer environment for adolescents and their families through the reduction of crime and illegal drugs in their neighborhoods.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Teens, Adults, Families
Goal: The goal of the Hawaii Catch-A-Roach Project is to reduce preventable asthma complications and emergency room visits and hospitalizations by increasing awareness of the link between cockroaches and asthma and reducing exposure to cockroaches.
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Early Childhood Development Programs: Comprehensive, Center-Based Programs for Children of Low-Income Families (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Impact: Evidence shows that publicly-funded, center-based, comprehensive early childhood development programs for low-income children aged 3 to 5 years can be effective in preventing delay of cognitive development and increasing readiness to learn.
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Interventions to Reduce Sexual Risk Behaviors or Increase Protective Behaviors to Prevent Acquisition of HIV in Men Who Have Sex with Men: Individual-, Group-, and Community-Level Behavioral Interventions (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Men's Health, Men
Goal: The goal of the HIV behavioral interventions program is to reduce unprotected anal intercourse among men who have sex with men.
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends individual-level HIV behavioral interventions for adult men who have sex with men to reduce unprotected anal intercourse. Related findings recommend HIV behavioral interventions at the group level and community level.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Oral Health, Children
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force has found that community water fluoridation is effective in decreasing dental caries across populations.
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Prevention of Birth Defects: Community-Wide Campaigns to Promote the Use of Folic Acid Supplements (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Women
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force has found that community-level education campaigns that promote the use of folic acid among women of child-bearing age can increase the number of these women who take folic acid supplements.