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

Head to Toe Weight Management Program (St. Louis, MO)

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.

Health and Safety Intervention with First-Time Mothers

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Women

Goal: The goal of CBFRS is to advance the health and development of first-time mothers and infants through a home visit program.

Impact: The findings indicate positive health and safety outcomes for first-time mothers and infants in the program: higher household safety levels, higher use of birth control methods, lower smoking behavior, higher knowledge of the effects of smoking on child development, and higher use of county clinics.

Health Impact Assessment in Land Use Development (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to ensure that city planning and policy making accounts for how land use development impacts community health resources.

Health in All Policies (California)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Governance, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The ultimate goal of this approach is to fundamentally change government so that agencies are aligned around a common vision for a healthy and equitable society, and so that health is considered in decision-making across sectors and policy areas.

Healthier Living with Arthritis Online Workshop (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Other Conditions, Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The program is focused on reduction of pain and improvement of function for arthritis patients unable or unwilling to attend small group ASMPs, which have proven effective in changing health-related behaviors and improving health status measures.

Healthier Options for Public Schoolchildren (HOPS) (Osceola)

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.

Healthy Families America (USA)

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

Goal: Program goals include prevention of negative birth outcomes (low birth weight, substance abuse, criminal activity, child abuse, and neglect), increased parenting skills, healthy pregnancy practices, and the use of social systems.

Healthy IDEAS (Houston, TX)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of Healthy IDEAS is to detect and address depression through effective, evidence-based screening and health promotion education.

Impact: Studies show that after 6 months in the Healthy IDEAS program, significantly more of the participants knew how to get help for depression (93% versus 68%), reported that increasing activity helped them feel better (89% versus 72%), and reported reduced pain (45% versus 16%) than at the beginning.

Healthy Kids Express - Asthma Program (St. Louis, Missouri)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Teens, Families

Goal: The mission of the Healthy Kids Express Asthma Program is to provide quality asthma care and education to children with asthma and their caretakers in a school environment to work towards goals set by Healthy People 2020 and the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP).

Impact: The Healthy Kids Express Asthma Program serves approximately 600 children a year, improving inhaler technique and asthma knowledge among participants. Children enrolled in the program for two consecutive years have lower school absentee rates and hospitalizations due to asthma.

Healthy Love (Atlanta, GA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: Healthy Love seeks to provide a safe, culturally tailored intervention for heterosexual black women to reduce their disproportionately high risk of transmitting and contracting HIV and other STDs. Healthy Love aims to encourage sexual abstinence, HIV testing, and receipt of test results; increase women's condom usage during vaginal sex with male partners; and reduce the number of women's sex partners and unprotected anal and vaginal sex with male partners. Healthy Love also seeks to improve HIV/STD knowledge, self-efficacy for using condoms, intentions to use condoms, and attitudes towards condoms.

Impact: Healthy Love increased participants' likelihood of using condoms, being tested for HIV, and receiving their test results. The intervention also reduced participants' self-described actions with male partners that can increase black women's risks for HIV infection.

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.