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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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Violence Intervention Program (VIP) (Baltimore, MD)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Domestic Violence & Abuse

Goal: The program aims to reduce the frequency and the severity of recidivism
for violent injury and criminal activity among persons
living in and around Baltimore.

Impact: Participants of the Violence Intervention Program saw a decrease in repeat hospitalizations, a decrease in violent crime and a higher rate of employment compared to those not in the program.

Violence Intervention Program (VIP) - Baltimore (Baltimore, MD)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Teens, Adults, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Violence Intervention Program (VIP) is to reduce the number of repeat victims of intentional violent injury by providing assessment, counseling, and social support from a multi-disciplinary team.

Impact: Patients who participated in the Violence Intervention Program were less likely to be re-hospitalized due to violent injury.

Volunteer Friends (Pasadena, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Transportation, Older Adults

Goal: The Beverly Foundation's mission is to foster new ideas and options to enhance mobility and transportation for today's and tomorrow's older population.

Walking School Bus (Houston, TX)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of the "walking school bus" is to increase children's rates of active commuting to school and physical activity.

WalkSafe (Florida)

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

Goal: The WalkSafe program was developed to improve pediatric pedestrian safety, increase physical activity levels by encouraging children to walk to and from school, and improve the walkability in and around elementary schools.

Web-Based Committed Quitters Stop Smoking Plan

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Adults

Goal: To increase the abstinence rate of smokers over the age of 18 through a supplemental, online, tailored smoking cessation program.

Impact: The Committed Quitters Stop Smoking Plan has been successful at increasing the abstinence rate for smokers enrolled in the plan. Abstinence was higher for enrollees of the plan after 28 days and after 10-weeks.

Wellness Initiative for Senior Education (WISE) (New Jersey)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health, Older Adults

Goal: The WISE Program is a wellness and prevention program targeting older adults, which is designed to help them celebrate healthy aging, make healthy lifestyle choices and avoid substance abuse.

Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program (WHEAP) (Wisconsin)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Governance

Goal: The goal of the Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program is to help low income households meet their home energy needs.

Women to Women

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

Goal: Women to Women aims to provide social support for chronically ill rural women to positively affect social support, self-esteem, empowerment, self-efficacy in order to decrease stress, depression, and loneliness to improve one’s adaptation to living with a chronic disease.

The overall goal of WTW is to use technology to enhance the potential for rural women to more successfully adapt to their chronic illnesses through computer-based support and education research by providing support groups and health education via the Internet.

Impact: The WTW project shows that computer-based interventions can result in improved self-esteem, social support, and empowerment among rural women with chronic illness.

Worcester Area Trial for Counseling in Hyperlipidemia (WATCH) (Massachusetts)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults

Goal: To decrease total and saturated fat intake, serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and body weight.

Impact: The dietitian-delivered intervention effectively improved the care of patients with hyperlipidemia.

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.