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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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Insights (Washington and North Carolina)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women

Goal: The goal of Insights is to increase condom use among young women at risk for HIV and other STDs.

Impact: Insights proves that tailored cognitive/behavioral minimal self-help interventions hold promise as HIV/STD prevention strategies for diverse populations of young at-risk women.

It's Your Game: Keep It Real (Texas)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens

Goal: The goal of It's Your Game: Keep It Real is to reduce teen pregnancy, prevent STI transmission, and delay teen sexual activity in middle school students.

Impact: Participants in the It’s Your Game: Keep It Real intervention program were less likely to initiate sex by the ninth grade when compared to the control group.

Jumpstart: Connect Early

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children

Goal: The goal of the Jumpstart program is to build language and social skills in preschool children by providing one-on-one mentoring with college students throughout the school year.

Keepin' it R.E.A.L. Mother-Adolescent HIV Prevention Program (Atlanta)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goals of this intervention were to delay initiation of sexual intercourse for youth who are not sexually active, encourage the use of condoms among sexually active youth, and enhance communication about sex between youths and their mothers.

Impact: Keepin' It R.E.A.L. teen participants increased their condom-use during sexual activity while maternal participants reported feeling more comfortable when discussing sexual issues with their teens.

Latino Commission on AIDS (New York City, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The Latino Commission on AIDS focuses its efforts on HIV/AIDS in the Latino community through health advocacy, promoting HIV education, developing model prevention programs for high-risk communities, and building capacity in community organization.

Impact: As the only provider of Spanish language HIV treatment, the Latino Commission on AIDS has created a model of public health that uses training, outreach, prevention and culturally sensitive care for Latinos living with HIV/AIDS.

LiveWell Colorado (Colorado)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Adults

Goal: The mission of LiveWell Colorado is to advance lifestyle, environmental, and policy changes that promote health through the reduction and prevention of obesity.

Maine Youth Overweight Collaborative (Maine)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Families

Goal: MYOC aims to improve clinical practice, care, and outcome regarding children's weight.

Many Men, Many Voices (3MV)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Wellness & Lifestyle, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: Reduce unprotected insertive and receptive anal intercourse among HIV-negative black men who have sex with men (MSM) as well as to reduce the number of sex partners, increase consistent condom use during anal intercourse and increase testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

McNeil Island Corrections Center Family and Fatherhood Program (Tacoma, WA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment

Goal: The goal of this program is to promote positive family relationships, help incarcerated fathers learn skills to be active and involved fathers, encourage incarcerated fathers to
provide financial support for their children, facilitate programs for offender families through community partnerships, and provide constructive opportunities for children to participate in special activities with their incarcerated father.

Medical-Legal Partnerships: Investing in Social Services as a Core Strategy for Healthcare (New York City)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: New York City LegalHealth is a fruitful partnership that operates in 11 clinics of the city's public hospitals. One example is by supporting individuals in tenant-landlord disputes.

Impact: With an average of $225 per case, LegalHealth was able to effectively demand fixes in asthma patients' living conditions. This impact directly resulted in a 90% drop in emergency room visits and hospital admissions for this asthma patient 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.