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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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Greater Boston Breathes Better (Boston)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air, Urban

Goal: The mission of Greater Boston Breathes Better is to help greater Boston’s citizens and visitors to breathe better.

Green Buildings, Local Law 86 (New York)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Energy & Sustainability, Urban

Goal: The goal of this legislation is to promote the design of more efficient buildings; thereby, reducing green house gas emissions, reducing energy costs, decreasing the use of potable water, and reducing the amount of stormwater runoff.

Green Engineering (USA)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: The goal of the Green Engineering Program is to incorporate risk related concepts into chemical processes and products designed by academia and industry.

Green Guerillas (New York City, NY)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban

Goal: Green Guerillas' goal is to help gardeners cultivate and manage community gardens that thrive as parks, urban farms, and outdoor community centers.

Green Power Partnership - Bellingham's global warming pollution reduction through use of green power (Bellingham)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: The goal is for cities or companies to reduce their carbon footprint. For example, research shows that buying 100 percent green power is the most significant step the City of Bellingham can take to protect the climate; it would eliminating more than 65 percent of the global warming pollution caused by municipal operations.

Green the Tenderloin (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Energy & Sustainability, Children, Teens, Adults, Older Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: Green the Tenderloin provides urban gardening classes, fresh produce, and nutrition education to members of the community.

GreenScapes (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment

Goal: The goal of GreenScapes is to encourage companies and organizations to make more environmentally conscious landscaping decisions and to reduce, reuse, recycle and rebuy.

Greenwich Senior Center (Greenwich, CT)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Older Adults

Goal: The goals of the Greenwich Senior Center are to improve health education/health monitoring/health screening utilization for diverse groups of seniors and to empower seniors to access programs, services and information on their own through literacy and computer literacy. The center also aims to provide socialization opportunities and financial assistance for seniors.

Grown in Ivanhoe (Kansas City, MO)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: Grown in Ivanhoe strives to achieve a just and equitable food environment in the Ivanhoe community by ensuring that residents have the information and resources needed to provide healthy, affordable foods for themselves and their families.

Impact: Grown in Ivanhoe has increased local food production and established resources for access to healthy foods.

Guys Only! After School Program (Frederick County, MD)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Family Planning, Teens

Goal: The goals of GO! are:

- to delay the initiation of sexual intercourse among males ages 12-14 to reduce teenage pregnancy in Frederick County
- to increase parent child communication
- to increase community awareness regarding adolescent sexuality

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.