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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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Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air, Teens

Goal: The goals of the Cool School Challenge are to:
* Educate young people, and by proxy their families, about climate change and everyday actions they can take to reduce their impact locally and globally;
* Reduce carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gas emissions in and around schools;
* Encourage student leadership and empowerment;
* Foster a community of teachers/students working together to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions; and
* Foster a new generation of environmental/air quality advocates.

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

Goal: The goal of Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) is to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and reduce obesity in preschool, elementary, and middle school aged children.

Impact: CATCH is successful in improving participants' diet and physical activity, and the results lasted three years after participation.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Families

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce aggressive behavior and delinquency in children by applying the contextual sociocognitive model.

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children

Goal: Core Knowledge is based on the idea that for the sake of academic excellence, greater fairness, and higher literacy, elementary and middle schools need a solid, specific, shared core curriculum in order to help children establish strong foundations of knowledge, grade by grade.

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment

Goal: The goal of the Cornell Waste Management Institute project was to increase the capacity to compost the tremendous amount of food scraps produced in New York State.

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

Goal: The goal of this study was to reduce pediatric asthma-related symptoms by installing central heating in homes.

Impact: Central heating successfully improves home heating, dampness, and energy efficiency. Through home modifications, asthma-related symptoms (nocturnal cough and days lost from school) can be reduced among children.

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce drug and alcohol use among teenagers.

Impact: Evaluations found significant increases in knowledge and healthy beliefs about alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse by parents. Youth in the program significantly increased their use of community services and delayed onset of ATOD use. Families participating in the program significantly increased youth involvement in setting and following family ATOD rules.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders

Goal: The goal of the Critical Time Intervention is to prevent homelessness among people with severe mental illness.

Impact: Evaluations of this program have found sizable reductions (24-67%) in average number of nights spent homeless over the 18-month follow-up period and more than a 60% reduction in likelihood of being homeless in the final weeks of the 18-month follow-up. Cost offsets and savings have been shown.

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

Goal: The overall goal of d-up! is to increase the number of black MSM who use a condom when they have sex.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Rural

Goal: The goal of the interventions is to reduce the number of blacklegged ticks to ultimately reduce the incidence of Lyme disease.

Impact: The four-poster device was effective in decreasing erythema migrans (EM) rash incidence in an endemic area. The deer hunt did not have a significant effect on the incidence of EM rash, although the incidence did decrease.