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

Healthy Start

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

Goal: The initiative's primary purpose was to reduce infant mortality by 50 percent and generally improve maternal and infant health in at-risk communities.

Impact: 20% of the Healthy Start program sites had significantly lower rates of low-birth-weight babies than their comparisons. 20% of the sites also had significantly lower rates of very-low-birth-weight babies than their comparisons. Four of the sites had significantly lower pre-term birth rates.

Hepatitis B ESL Education Curriculum for Chinese Immigrants (Canada)

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

Goal: To educate the Chinese Canadian immigrant community on Hepatitis B knowledge and to promote Hepatitis B testing through ESL curriculum.

Impact: The Chinese immigrant population in North America has a rate of Hepatitis B infection that is 10 times higher than the general population's rate of approximately 0.5 percent. The Hepatitis B ESL curriculum is effective in increasing knowledge about Hepatitis B among Chinese immigrants in Canada.

Hip-Hop to Health Jr (Chicago)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of Hip-Hop to Health Jr is to reduce gains in BMI in preschool minority children.

HIV Big Deal (New York City)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Adults

Goal: HIV Big Deal seeks to promote safer sex practices among men who have sex with men via internet-based video drama.

HIV/STD Risk Reduction Interventions for African American and Latino Adolescent Girls (Philadelphia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of this intervention was to reduce self-reported unprotected sexual intercourse among African American and Latino adolescent girls.

Impact: Skill-based HIV/STD interventions can improve condom-use and reduce sexual risk behaviors, along with STD rates, among African American and Latino teen girls in clinical settings.

Holistic Health Recovery Program (New Haven, CT)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Urban

Goal: The goals of the Holistic Health Recovery Program are to promote health and improve quality of life of injection drug users.

Impact: Implementation of the program resulted in a decrease in addition severity, a decrease in risk behavior, and significant improvement in behavioral skills and quality of life.

Home Again: A Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County (Portland and Multnomah County, OR)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to end homelessness in the City of Portland and Multnomah County by 2015. As efforts to end homelessness continue, city and county officials will focus on nine actions. Programs throughout the county will address moving people into Housing First, ending the practice of discharging people into homelessness from jails and hospitals, improving outreach, emphasizing permanent solutions, increasing the housing supply, creating new partnerships, improving the rent assistance system, increasing economic opportunity for homeless people and implementing new data collection technology.

Home Vaccination Intervention (Melbourne, Australia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of this intervention is to promote catch-up immunizations for children who are behind the recommended immunization schedule.

Impact: Home vaccination for children behind in their immunization schedule is an effective and relatively cheap method of completing recommended vaccinations, and can be particularly beneficial for disadvantaged families.

Immunization Case Management Intervention (Los Angeles, CA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of this immunization case management intervention is to improve immunization rates among infants of low-income, urban, African American families.

Impact: Immunization case management increased the knowledge of immunization schedules, rate of well-child visits, and up-to-date immunization rate for children of participating families.

Improving Colorectal Cancer Screening Among the Medically Underserved (Chicago, IL)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to increase provider recommendation and patient compliance with colorectal cancer screening at a federally qualified health center serving low-income patients.

Impact: The intervention appears to be a feasible means to improve colorectal cancer screening rates among patients served by community health centers. However, more attention to patient decision making and education may be needed to further increase screening rates.

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.