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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Oral Health, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of this intervention was to involve pediatricians to help reduce rates of early childhood caries.
Impact: The multifaceted ECC intervention was associated with increased provider knowledge and counseling, and significantly attenuated incidence of ECC, showing that similar interventions could have the potential to make a significant public health impact on reducing ECC among young children.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
Goal: The goal of PESP is to reduce the health and environmental risks associated with pesticide use.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Community AIDS Prevention Program is to educate inner city Latino adolescents about how to reduce risk related to HIV/AIDS, and to encourage sexually active teens to use condoms.
Impact: This program shows that prevention programs targeting HIV/AIDS risk-reduction strategies and condom use encouragement can delay male initiation of sexual intercourse, reduce females' number of sexual partners, and increase likelihood of possessing a condom among sexually active youth.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / School Environment, Children
Goal: The goals of this program are:
- Detect school adjustment difficulties
- Prevent social and emotional problems
- Enhance learning skills
Impact: One study demonstrated that participants made significant improvements in task orientation, specifically in working more independently and completing tasks faster. In behavior control, program students showed increased coping skills and lower levels of aggressiveness and produced fewer disruptions. In assertiveness, students had improved participation in activities, were better at expressing ideas, and showed increased leadership and decreased shyness. Improvements in peer sociability included increases in the quality of peer relationships and improved social skills. Several other evaluations of the Primary Project present evidence of improved school adjustment and decreases in problem behaviors for participants.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goals of the program are: 1) to promote abstinence maintenance among sexually abstinent students and encourage safer sex practices to sexually active students, 2) compare the effect of RAPP when taught by different providers, and 3) to explore the factors that impact a student's decision to engage in sexual activity.
Impact: Regular teacher-taught male (p=.001) and female students (p=.05) and peer-taught male students (p=.02) had the highest rates of delaying the onset of sexual activity.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Women, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Safer Sex project is to increase condom use, prevent recurrent STDs, and eliminate or reduce risky sexual behaviors among adolescent females that have been diagnosed with an STD.
Impact: The Safer Sex project shows that individualized safer sex interventions may improve condom use and decrease the number of partners among adolescent girls who have had an STD.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children
Goal: School Food FOCUS is a national collaborative that leverages the knowledge and procurement power of large school districts to make school meals nationwide more healthful, regionally sourced, and sustainably produced.
Impact: School Food FOCUS helps partners procure healthy and sustainable school foods, works towards policies that advance healthy school foods, and facilitates knowledge sharing around school food issues.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The primary goal of the School Lunch Initiative is to transform the way Berkeley public school students eat lunch and to educate children about food, health, and the environment.
Impact: Three years after its conception, the program successfully eliminated nearly all processed foods from the school district dining halls and introduced fresh and organic foods to the daily menu. There was evidence that greater exposure to the School Lunch Initiative was significantly associated with higher nutrition knowledge scores among fourth graders and seventh graders. Furthermore, elementary school students from the schools with highly developed School Lunch Initiative components clearly expressed a higher preference for fruits and vegetables.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance, Children
Goal: The mission of the Banking on Our Future (BOOF) program is to execute a global delivery system for financial education for youth ages 9-18 at no cost to school districts, with a focus on urban, under-served communities.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Bay Area SCORES program is to reduce obesity, increase physical fitness, and manage cardiovascular health-related risks while improving academic performance in children between the ages of 6 and 12 through soccer, creative expression, service learning, “hip hop for health,” and creative writing.