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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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Healthy Howard (Howard County, MD)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: Healthy Howard opens doors for individuals, groups and communities to improve their health and wellness.

Impact: Healthy Howard provides resources to schools, restaurants, workplaces, and childcare centers to help them improve the health and choices of their students, employees, or clients.

Healthy Parks and the Interface between State and Local Policy Change (California)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Governance, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Act is to ensure that funding for new parks and green spaces is prioritized for critically underserved and disadvantaged urban communities.

Hepatitis B ESL Education Curriculum for Chinese Immigrants (Canada)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: To educate the Chinese Canadian immigrant community on Hepatitis B knowledge and to promote Hepatitis B testing through ESL curriculum.

Impact: The Chinese immigrant population in North America has a rate of Hepatitis B infection that is 10 times higher than the general population's rate of approximately 0.5 percent. The Hepatitis B ESL curriculum is effective in increasing knowledge about Hepatitis B among Chinese immigrants in Canada.

Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families

Goal: HIPPY programs empower parents as primary educators of their children in the home and foster parent involvement in school and community life to maximize the chances of successful early school experiences.

Impact: Through 20 years of research, the HIPPY model has proven to be effective in improving school readiness, parent involvement in students' academic lives, school attendance, classroom behavior, and overall academic performance.

Increasing the Use of Child Restraints in Motor Vehicles (Dallas, TX)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to increase child restraint use by Hispanic community members.

Interfaith Housing of Western Maryland (Maryland)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Families

Goal: Interfaith Housing Alliance strengthens families, builds communities and promotes human dignity and economic justice by providing decent, affordable housing for those with lower incomes. Through education, advocacy and the creation of new jobs, they foster economic growth and overcome the effects of shelter poverty.

Isles, Inc (Trenton, NJ)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Children, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: Isles' mission is to foster more self-reliant families in healthy, sustainable communities.

Jefferson County Juvenile Gun Court (Jefferson County, AL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children

Goal: The program’s goals are to provide early intervention and greater accountability for juveniles charged with weapons offenses, help juveniles recognize and use nonviolent means to promote their safety and preserve their self-esteem, and effectively deliver the message that gun violence hurts victims, families, and communities.

Kartini Clinic (Portland, OR)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The overriding treatment goal of Kartini Clinic is to secure lasting remission of eating disorder symptoms, allowing patients and their families to return to their own communities. Using a holistic approach, embracing medical as well as psychological and social interventions, patients are treated with the belief that parents do not cause eating disorders and children do not choose to have them.

Impact: Since 1998, Kartini Clinic has treated more than 2,000 patients and their families for a range of eating disorders.

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.