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 / Adolescent Health, Teens, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Teen Health Project is to provide adolescents with the skills necessary to prevent HIV risk behaviors.
Impact: The Teen Health Project shows that community-level interventions that include skills training and engage adolescents in neighborhood-based HIV prevention activities can produce and maintain reductions in sexual risk behavior, including delaying sexual debut and increasing condom use.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Family Planning, Teens, Women, Urban
Goal: This program aimed to improve birth and early child outcomes among high-risk pregnant and parenting adolescents.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The goal of the CARES program is to decrease barriers and improve access to dental care.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Older Adults
Goal: The goal of this program is to encourage weight bearing exercise among seniors and individuals at risk of or suffering with osteoporosis.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The Diabetes Collaborative is a comprehensive, sustainable and evidence-based model of care developed to combat the health problems associated with diabetes.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Adults, Urban
Goal: The Food Trust's mission is to ensure that everyone have access to affordable, nutritious food by providing nutrition education and greater availability of affordable, healthy food.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The primary goal of the intervention was to reduce overweight and obesity prevalence among middle school students. Ancillary goals were to improve BMI and fasting insulin values, increase water consumption, reduce consumption of beverages with added sugar, increase healthy food choices, improve self-monitoring, and increase exercise time among sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students.
Impact: School-based programs that aim to address childhood obesity and adiposity may reduce individuals' risk of developing childhood-onset of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Cancer, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of this program is to encourage early detection of breast cancer among diverse populations in New Jersey. When breast cancer is diagnosed at a local stage, 97% of women still are alive 5 years later. The 5-year survival rate decreases to 21% when the disease is diagnosed after it has spread to other sites.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Urban
Goal: The goal of this project is to provide compost outreach and education to New York City residents and businesses.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children
Goal: Launched in the fall of 2002, the plan, Moving Our Children Toward a Healthy Weight: Finding the Will and the Way, calls for a multilevel approach to reducing the number of overweight and obese children. It focuses not only on behavioral and interpersonal change, but also on the organizational, community, and societal changes necessary to support healthy eating habits and increased physical activity for children, teens, and their families.