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 Effective Practice, Economy / Employment
Goal: The goal of this program is to move employable TANF recipients into the workforce and to provide job retention support.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program is to increase fruit and vegetable consumption behavior in participants of the Women, Infants, and Children program in Genessee County, Michigan.
Impact: Participants of the program increased their fruit and vegetable consumption and the program had a positive effect on participants attitudes toward consuming fruits and vegetables.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children
Goal: The goal of the MEND program is to reduce obesity levels in children by offering free healthy living programs that aim to encourage small lifestyle changes that improve health.
Impact: The MEND program was successful in reducing waist circumferences and BMI scores while increasing cardiovascular fitness, physical activity, and self esteem in children placed within the intervention group. The results of this study suggest that the MEND program is a promising intervention to combat rising child obesity rates.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The National Diabetes Prevention Program encourages collaboration among federal agencies, community-based organizations, employers, insurers, health care professionals, academia, and other stakeholders to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes among people with prediabetes in the United States.
Impact: The National Diabetes Prevention Program is a cost-effective method to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes among individuals with prediabetes.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use
Goal: The goal of this program is to effectively treat substance abuse by using the patient's social support network to support abstinence.
Impact: Among Network Therapy clients, 64.5% of all samples submitted were negative for opioids, compared with 45.3% of all samples submitted by medication maintenance clients. Furthermore, 88% of urine samples were negative for cocaine for Network Therapy participants, compared with 66% of urine samples collected from treatment-as-usual clients.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety, Teens, Urban
Goal: The purpose of the program is to keep youth out of crime and to provide them with opportunities for a more fulfilling life.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults
Goal: The New York State Smokers' Quitline is a free and confidential service that provides effective stop smoking services to New Yorkers who want to stop smoking.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: The goal of this study is to examine NEMT’s return on investment and expand research on its financial benefit.
Impact: The findings suggest that NEMT more than pays for itself as part of a care management strategy for people with chronic diseases, resulting in a total positive return on investment of over $40 million per month ($480 million annually) per 30,000 Medicaid beneficiaries.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Rural
Goal: The overall goal is to reduce the prevalence of diabetes and improve the care of people with diabetes by improving provider education.
Impact: The results indicate that a half-day site visit with an experienced diabetologist can lead to sustained, improved glycemic and lipid control in previously-uncontrolled diabetic patients. The online iDose tool provides an easy way for healthcare providers to calculate insulin dosage.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women
Goal: The program has three primary goals:
1) to improve pregnancy outcomes by promoting health-related behaviors;
2) to improve child health, development and safety by promoting competent care-giving; and
3) to enhance parent life-course development by promoting pregnancy planning, educational achievement, and employment.
The program also has two secondary goals: to enhance families’ material support by providing links with needed health and social services, and to promote supportive relationships among family and friends.
Impact: Evaluations of the program have shown that women who were visited by nurses had significantly better outcomes than those who did not in terms of measures such as maternal health, maternal life-course development, child health and safety, and adolescent measures of delinquency.