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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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Outdoor Air Quality Flag Program (San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air, Children

Goal: The program aims to accomplish two things in Central California: (1) permanently change local policy with respect to existing operating procedures in school districts and schools to help reduce exposure of students, teachers, staff and nearly communities to outdoor environmental asthma triggers ;and (2) provide education on air quality and potential health effects from exposure to air pollutants.

Parent Child Development Center

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Families

Goal: The goal of this program is to foster positive family relationships.

Parents' Fair Share

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Families

Goal: The goals of the program included helping unemployed, noncustodial parents (primarily fathers) to secure employment, pay child support, and participate more fully and responsibly as parents.

Partners Clinic (St Lucie County, FL)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve access to health care for uninsured and underinsured adults.

Partners in Reading (Greensboro, NC)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve reading skills for beginner readers.

Partners in School Innovation (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: Partners in School Innovation enables public schools in high-poverty Bay Area communities to achieve educational equity through school-based reform.

Partners on the PATH (Grand Rapids, MI)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The project seeks to model how the aging network in partnership with a managed care plan can improve the health outcomes for older adults.

Partnerships That Work: National Service and Business in Welfare to Work (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment, Teens, Families

Goal: This study addresses how to use national service to build effective welfare-to-work programs, and to encourage business collaborations. Two major suggestions are partnering with Employer Advisory Groups and generating national level support.

Pasadena Community Asthma Program (PCAP) (Pasadena)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Families

Goal: The program’s goal is to help families prevent and/or successfully manage asthma.

PAX Tools for Human Services (Tucson/Pima/Arizona)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: PAXIS Institute develops, implements, and supports tested and proven solution-focused strategies with real-world outcomes for children and the adults who care for them in partnership with communities to reduce historical disparities and improve lifetime outcomes to create population-level peace, productivity, health, and happiness.

The mission of the PAX Tools for Human Services program is to empower individuals and communities to create a more nurturing environment with universal access to research-based prevention science in order to improve the well-being and lifetime outcomes of people from all walks of life around the world.

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.