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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.

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Medical Legal Partnerships: Embedding Civil Legal Aid Services in Care for High-Utilizing Patients (Lancaster, PA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Governance, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the pilot was to assess the impact on health care use of addressing patients’ civil legal problems – the social, financial, or environmental problems that require assistance from lawyers to remedy. The lawyer was embedded in the health care team and present during case management discussions to identify specific civil legal problems and to help the team better understand how to address them. Additionally, this partnership provided civil legal aid services to patients when needed in a community health care system.

Impact: This pilot shows a medical-legal partnership for the super-utilizers of healthcare can lead to efficiencies within the health care system, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes among the most vulnerable patients.

New York Refugee and Immigrant Job Centers (New York, NY)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to provide assistance to clients whose primary language is not English.

Nurses for Newborns (Missouri and Tennessee)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Families

Goal: Nurses for Newborns aims to provide a safety net for families at-risk and in-need of extra assistance, with programs serving teen moms, mothers with disabilities, infants that are sick, and other families in-need to prevent infant mortality, child abuse, and neglect.

Oregon Tobacco Prevention and Education Program (Oregon)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce tobacco use in Oregon.

Prohibiting Smoking in Pedestrian Plazas and Public Parks (New York City, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the law is to protect the health of New Yorkers by reducing second hand smoke exposure.

Project BOOST (Building Options and Opportunities for Students) (New York)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of the program is to provide students with opportunities that will help them gain admission to high-achieving high schools.

Project Making a Group and Individual Difference (MAGIC) (Elko, NV)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Teens, Rural

Goal: The goal of Project MAGIC is to help juvenile offenders leave the criminal justice system.

Prompting and Reminding at Encounters for Prevention (PREP) (Michigan)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Rural

Goal: The goal of the PREP computerized reminder system is to increase colorectal cancer screening.

Reaching Educators, Children, and Parents (RECAP) (Nashville, TN)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children

Goal: The primary goal of the program is to reduce the level of children's psychological problems, as well as preventing the development of more serious problems among children who are not referred for formal mental health services.

SMARTteam (Students Managing Anger and Resolution Together)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to teach conflict-resolution skills to middle-school students.

Impact: Studies showed a statistically significant increase in students' awareness of how their own behaviors contribute to the escalation of a conflict situation for students participating in SMARTteam when compared with the control group not receiving the intervention. Students in the intervention group were also less likely to value violence as an option in conflict situations than their peers in the control group.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. 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.
  2. 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:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
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