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.
Green Power Partnership - Bellingham's global warming pollution reduction through use of green power (Bellingham)
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air
Goal: The goal is for cities or companies to reduce their carbon footprint. For example, research shows that buying 100 percent green power is the most significant step the City of Bellingham can take to protect the climate; it would eliminating more than 65 percent of the global warming pollution caused by municipal operations.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alternative Medicine, Rural
Goal: The goal of GUAMAP is to train rural community health workers to provide remote settlements in northern Guatemala with access to sustainable, low-cost, low-technology, effective health care through the use of acupuncture.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Teens, Families, Urban
Goal: The mission of Head to Toe is to teach children and their families the skills to manage body weight as they grow by living a healthy lifestyle that includes regular physical activity, healthy eating habits, and a positive self-image.
Impact: From August 2011 to May 2016, 485 children and their parents or guardians have enrolled in the Head to Toe program. Head to Toe has effectively increased knowledge of nutrition, physical activity and emotional health among participants.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults, Urban
Goal: White Crane's health outreach model strives to reduce the incidence of risk factors for preventable disease, to motivate and educate seniors to take control of their health, and to make primary health care services accessible to vulnerable elders.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends tenant-based housing voucher programs to improve health and health-related outcomes for adults based on sufficient evidence of effectiveness. Health-related outcomes include housing quality and security, healthcare use, and neighborhood opportunities (e.g., lower poverty level, better schools).
Children ages 12 years and younger whose households use vouchers show improvements in education, employment, and income later in life. Outcomes for adolescents vary by gender. Females 10-20 years of age whose families use tenant-based vouchers to live in lower poverty neighborhoods experience better health outcomes while males of the same age experience worse physical and mental health outcomes. Additional research is needed to better understand and address challenges faced by adolescent males.
CPSTF finds societal benefits exceed the cost of tenant-based housing voucher programs that serve families with young children who are living in public housing, provide pre-move counseling, and move families to neighborhoods with greater opportunities.
Tenant-based housing voucher programs give many people access to better housing and neighborhood opportunities, both of which are considered social determinants of health. Because these programs are designed for households with low incomes, they are expected to advance health equity.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health, Older Adults, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program was to target the housing support needs of its members with the objective of reducing institutionalization, improving quality of life, and reducing total costs of care.
Impact: The large majority of participants surveyed indicated that their quality of life was maintained or increased during the pilot and that they were satisfied with the program.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children
Goal: The goal of the HOPS program was to improve overall health status and academic achievement using replicable strategies.
Impact: The HOPS intervention helped students who qualified for free or reduced price meals both stay within the normal BMI percentile and score higher on their state math achievement test.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children
Goal: The goal of Healthy Buddies is to increase health knowledge, health behaviors, and health attitudes in children in elementary school.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: Healthy Eating, Active Communities (HEAC) aims to fight the growing childhood obesity epidemic in California and to develop state policy changes that will reduce the risk factors for diabetes and obesity.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families
Goal: The goals of HFNY are to promote positive parent-child interaction; to ensure optimal pre-natal care; to promote healthy childhood growth and development; and to enhance family functioning.
Impact: Mothers participating in the HFNY study were significantly less likely to deliver low-birth-weight babies than mothers in the control group (3.3% vs 8.3%). HFNY parents also reported having engaged in significantly fewer acts of serious abuse and neglect.