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.

Submit a Promising Practice

Vision Literacy (Santa Clara, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Literacy, Adults

Goal: Vision Literacy aims to empower adults by improving reading, writing, basic math, and computer skills.

Walking School Bus (Houston, TX)

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

Goal: The goal of the "walking school bus" is to increase children's rates of active commuting to school and physical activity.

Web-Based Committed Quitters Stop Smoking Plan

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Adults

Goal: To increase the abstinence rate of smokers over the age of 18 through a supplemental, online, tailored smoking cessation program.

Impact: The Committed Quitters Stop Smoking Plan has been successful at increasing the abstinence rate for smokers enrolled in the plan. Abstinence was higher for enrollees of the plan after 28 days and after 10-weeks.

Wheels that Care (Kansas City, MO)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Transportation, Adults, Older Adults

Goal: Shepherd's Center Central is a local leader in the regional effort to ensure that all people can age successfully with dignity, security, and respect.

Impact: The Wheels that Care program helped 77 older adults attend their necessary appointments and maintain their independence through 1,550 hours of travel time to and from participants' homes and their appointments.

Winning With Wellness (Tennessee)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of the Winning With Wellness (WWW) project is to promote physical activity and healthier eating habits in order to reduce and prevent childhood obesity.

Impact: School wellness programs that are acceptable to teachers and utilize some already existing resources can create impact for rural youth by improving nutrition offerings in school and increasing physical activity during the school day.

Women Involved in Life Learning from Other Women (WILLOW) (various cities in Alabama and Georgia)

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

Goal: The goal of the WILLOW intervention is to provide women living with HIV/AIDS with the skills and education needed to support safer sexual decisions.

Impact: The WILLOW program succeeded in reducing the number of reported episodes of unprotected vaginal intercourse, increasing the use of condoms and condom self-efficacy, decreasing the incidence of bacterial infections (chlamydia and gonorrhea), and improving HIV knowledge.

Women to Women

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women, Rural

Goal: Women to Women aims to provide social support for chronically ill rural women to positively affect social support, self-esteem, empowerment, self-efficacy in order to decrease stress, depression, and loneliness to improve one’s adaptation to living with a chronic disease.

The overall goal of WTW is to use technology to enhance the potential for rural women to more successfully adapt to their chronic illnesses through computer-based support and education research by providing support groups and health education via the Internet.

Impact: The WTW project shows that computer-based interventions can result in improved self-esteem, social support, and empowerment among rural women with chronic illness.

Worcester Area Trial for Counseling in Hyperlipidemia (WATCH) (Massachusetts)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults

Goal: To decrease total and saturated fat intake, serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and body weight.

Impact: The dietitian-delivered intervention effectively improved the care of patients with hyperlipidemia.

Worcester Goods for Guns Buyback (G4G) Program (Worcester, MA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goals of this program are three-fold: first, to remove unwanted improperly stored guns from homes; second, to educate the community about the increased risk of gun-related injuries in the home and the importance of safe gun storage; and third, to identify individuals possessing improperly stored guns at home and provide them with safety information and alternatives.

Impact: This program shows a strong collaboration between health care providers and public safety offices and showcases a low-cost means of removing unwanted firearms from the community. Additionally, most participants felt their homes were safer after turning in their firearm(s).

Working toward Wellness (Rhode Island)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Adults

Goal: The goal of the Working toward Wellness program was to encourage depressed parents who were receiving Medicaid to seek treatment from a mental health professional.

Impact: The Working toward Wellness program succeeded in increasing the likelihood that depressed Medicaid parents sought mental health services, particularly among the Hispanic population.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

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.
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:

The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
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:

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.
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.
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.