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, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban
Goal: Green Guerillas' goal is to help gardeners cultivate and manage community gardens that thrive as parks, urban farms, and outdoor community centers.
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to foster civic participation and encourage neighborhood revitalization while preserving open space. Community gardens provide green space and easily accessible recreational opportunities in the areas that need them most.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Women, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: To eliminate or reduce sexual transmission risk behavior, to eliminate or reduce injection drug use risks and to improve health care practices and quality of life among people living with HIV.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of Project HEED is to lessen the incidence of diabetes in ethnic minority communities through peer-led educational interventions focusing on weight loss.
Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Employment, Women, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: Hot Bread Kitchen's mission is to increase economic security for foreign-born, low-income women and men by helping them gain access to the thriving specialty food industry.
Impact: Hot Bread Kitchen trains low-income, immigrant men and women for successful professional baking careers.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children
Goal: The "I Have a Dream"® Program helps children from low-income areas reach their education and career goals by providing a long-term program of mentoring, tutoring, and enrichment with an assured opportunity for higher education.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to provide HIV testing and services to individuals involved in tuberculosis contact investigations.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to increase access to colorectal cancer screening by improving the efficiency in health care clinics.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults mission is "a total community working together to provide services to, and develop skills in, older adults in order to promote independence and enhance their quality of life."
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban
Goal: The goal of Just Food is to build a more just food system in which family farmers make a fair profit for their efforts, and all people have access to affordable, healthy food. Just Food envisions a strong regional food system -- incorporating a diversity of rural farms and a robust urban farming component -- that preserves ecosystems, reduces pollution, promotes social justice, provides education about the environment, and invigorates rural and urban economies.