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 Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Women
The goal of CBFRS is to advance the health and development of first-time mothers and infants through a home visit program.
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.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults, Urban
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 Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Families, Urban
To combat childhood obesity through mobile health education, community partnership, and access to existing federal, state, and local health and nutrition programs.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children
The goal of Healthy Buddies is to increase health knowledge, health behaviors, and health attitudes in children in elementary school.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults, Urban
The goal of Healthy IDEAS is to detect and address depression through effective, evidence-based screening and health promotion education.
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.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families
The program’s goal is to identify children at risk for developmental or behavioral problems and to connect them to existing community resources.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Urban
Housing for Health program goals are to improve patients’ health, reduce costs to the public health system, and demonstrate DHS’s commitment to addressing homelessness within Los Angeles County.
The average public service utilization cost per participant for the year prior to housing totaled $38,146; in the year after receiving housing, it totaled $15,358. When taking into account PSH costs, RAND observed a 20-percent net cost savings, suggesting a potential cost benefit of the program.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children
The goal of this program is to teach children effective problem-solving skills.
Studies demonstrated that ICPS participants scored better than the control group on impulsiveness, inhibition, and total behavior problems; showed fewer high-risk behaviors than never-trained controls; showed improvement in positive, prosocial behaviors and decreases in antisocial behaviors; and performed better on standardized achievement tests.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Women
The Illinois WISEWOMAN program (IWP) aims to lower heart disease and other chronic disease risk factors through screening and lifestyle classes for women in high-risk populations in service counties throughout Illinois.
The Illinois WISEWOMAN Program addresses the disproportionate risk of cardiovascular disease among disadvantaged, low-income women. Participation in the program has been shown to improve dietary, physical activity and cardiovascular outcomes.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens
The goal of It's Your Game: Keep It Real is to reduce teen pregnancy, prevent STI transmission, and delay teen sexual activity in middle school students.
Participants in the It’s Your Game: Keep It Real intervention program were less likely to initiate sex by the ninth grade when compared to the control group.