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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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Menominee Nation’s Culturally Informed Settings Across Systems

Filed under Good Idea, Health

Impact: Among other improvements, the 4-year graduation rate for Menominee Indian High School increased from less than 60% in 2008 to 92% for the 2015-16 school year.

Multicultural Health Promoters Program (Montgomery County, MD)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goals of the program are to improve the health of recent immigrant families by training native speakers from different countries to help enroll members of their communities in various publicly funded health programs.

Multistate Investigation into Ameriquest's Predatory Lending Practices

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes

Goal: The goal of this investigation was to stop Ameriquest's predatory lending practices.

Native American Tribes Adopt Tobacco Protections (Montana)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: To create successful smoke-free strategies that are rooted in cultural tradition.

Impact: By recognizing the cultural traditions of sacred tobacco use, an inter-tribal coalition was successful in implementing culturally appropriate tobacco protections for tribal members.

Neighborhood Market DrillDown + (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Economic Climate, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to promote investments in underserved urban neighborhoods.

New York's Banking Development Districts (New York)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance

Goal: The goal of the program is to increase access to financial services for low-income families as well as stimulate economic development in distressed neighborhoods.

NYC FITNESSGRAM (New York)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the program is to assist students in establishing physical activity as part of their daily lives.

Open Airways for Schools (OAS) (Chicago, IL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal of the Open Airways for Schools intervention is to improve asthma control among children in Latino communities in Chicago.

Parent Child Development Center

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Families

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

Picture Me Healthy (Madera County, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve immunization rates in Madera County.

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.