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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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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.

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.

Guiding Good Choices

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

Goal: The primary goal of GGC is to reduce youth substance abuse and problem behaviors by increasing family involvement that is rewarding and enhances parent-child bonds.

Impact: Significant positive effects on increasing family involvement and interaction and reducing youth substance abuse were observed. A cost-benefit analysis estimates a $5.85 benefit for every dollar invested in the program.

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

Head Start & Early Head Start

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Families

Goal: The goal of Early Head Start (EHS) is to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, enhance the development of very young children, and promote healthy family functioning. The goal of Head Start is to increase school readiness of young children in low-income families.

Impact: Studies have demonstrated positive effects of the program for both 3- and 4-year-old children on pre-reading, pre-writing, vocabulary, and parent reports of children’s literacy skills. For 3-year-olds, a greater number of parents reported improved access to health care and better health status.

Health Care and Public Service Use and Costs Before and After Provision of Housing for Chronically Homeless Persons With Severe Alcohol Problems

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: To evaluate the association of a “Housing First” intervention for chronically homeless individuals with severe alcohol problems with health care use and costs.

Impact: Total cost offsets for Housing First participants relative to controls averaged $2449 per person per month after accounting for housing program costs.

Health Equity: Center-Based Early Childhood Education

CDC

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

Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends center-based early childhood education programs (ECE) to improve educational outcomes that are associated with long-term health as well as social- and health-related outcomes. Economic evidence indicates there is a positive return on investment in early childhood education. The benefits from students' future earnings gains alone exceed program costs.

If targeted to low-income or racial and ethnic minority communities, ECE programs are likely to reduce educational achievement gaps, improve the health of these student populations, and promote health equity.

Health Impact Assessment in Land Use Development (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to ensure that city planning and policy making accounts for how land use development impacts community health resources.

Healthy Homes/Healthy Families (Georgia)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Families, Rural

Goal: Healthy Homes/Healthy Families aims to help rural residents of Southwest Georgia make healthy behavior changes.

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.