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.

Submit a Promising Practice

Maryland WIC 5-A-Day (MD)

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

Goal: To increase daily fruits and vegetables servings by half in women served by WIC participants with the long term goal of reducing risk of cancer.

Impact: The Maryland WIC 5-A-Day Program shows that while multi-faceted community based interventions can effectively promote and sustain dietary change among low-income populations in order to reduce the risk of cancer, many obstacles remain in implementing such programs.

Massachusetts Click It or Ticket Campaign (Massachusetts)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Transportation

Goal: The Click It or Ticket Campaign Enhancement and Evaluation project's goals were to:

-Increase safety belt use in Massachusetts; and
-Evaluate the impact of adding educational activities to standard enforcement mobilization waves.

Mind, Exercise, Nutrition...Do it! (MEND) Program (United Kingdom)

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

Goal: The goal of the MEND program is to reduce obesity levels in children by offering free healthy living programs that aim to encourage small lifestyle changes that improve health.

Impact: The MEND program was successful in reducing waist circumferences and BMI scores while increasing cardiovascular fitness, physical activity, and self esteem in children placed within the intervention group. The results of this study suggest that the MEND program is a promising intervention to combat rising child obesity rates.

Mobile Community CareLink (CCL) (Kansas City, MO)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of Mobile CCL is to foster a higher level of client engagement and motivation in the treatment/recovery process.

Impact: As a web-based client portal to care management, Mobile CCL is enabling the integration of behavioral health treatment with primary care.

National Capital Asthma Coalition (Washington, DC)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the National Capital Asthma Coalition is to form partnerships between organizations to improving the care and outcomes for children and adults with asthma.

North Carolina Fruits and Veggies Nutrition Coalition (North Carolina)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Adults, Families

Goal: The mission of the North Carolina Fruits and Veggies Nutrition Coalition is to build a healthier North Carolina by increasing access to and consumption of fruits and vegetables.

North Carolina Graduation Project (North Carolina)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens

Goal: The mission is to provide a multi-disciplinary program that prepares students for 21st century careers by giving them community based involvement. The hope of this project is for the students to connect content knowledge, acquired skills, and work habits to real world situations and issues.

Nurse-Family Partnership

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

Goal: The program has three primary goals:
1) to improve pregnancy outcomes by promoting health-related behaviors;
2) to improve child health, development and safety by promoting competent care-giving; and
3) to enhance parent life-course development by promoting pregnancy planning, educational achievement, and employment.

The program also has two secondary goals: to enhance families’ material support by providing links with needed health and social services, and to promote supportive relationships among family and friends.

Impact: Evaluations of the program have shown that women who were visited by nurses had significantly better outcomes than those who did not in terms of measures such as maternal health, maternal life-course development, child health and safety, and adolescent measures of delinquency.

Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child-Care (NAP SACC) (USA)

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

Goal: NAP SACC aims to improve policies, practices, and environments in childcare through better nutrition, increased exercise, and staff-child interactions.

Impact: Intervention centers are more likely to make significant changes in nutrition policies, environments, and practices. The intervention has been replicated in other states to help improve nutrition and physical activity policies and practices.

Opportunity NYC Demonstrations- Family Rewards (New York City)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Poverty, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program was to help poor families build up their “human capital” and avoid long-term poverty.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

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.
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:

The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
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:

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.
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.
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.