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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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I Can Problem Solve (ICPS)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to teach children effective problem-solving skills.

Impact: Studies demonstrated that ICPS participants scored better than the control group on impulsiveness, inhibition, and total behavior problems; showed fewer high-risk behaviors than never-trained controls; showed improvement in positive, prosocial behaviors and decreases in antisocial behaviors; and performed better on standardized achievement tests.

Illinois WISEWOMAN Program (Illinois)

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

Goal: The Illinois WISEWOMAN program (IWP) aims to lower heart disease and other chronic disease risk factors through screening and lifestyle classes for women in high-risk populations in service counties throughout Illinois.

Impact: The Illinois WISEWOMAN Program addresses the disproportionate risk of cardiovascular disease among disadvantaged, low-income women. Participation in the program has been shown to improve dietary, physical activity and cardiovascular outcomes.

Illumination Foundation (Orange County, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Children, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Illumination Foundation is to bridge the gaps in existing services for the most underserved to break or prevent the cycle of homelessness in Orange County.

Immunization Case Management Intervention (Los Angeles, CA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of this immunization case management intervention is to improve immunization rates among infants of low-income, urban, African American families.

Impact: Immunization case management increased the knowledge of immunization schedules, rate of well-child visits, and up-to-date immunization rate for children of participating families.

IMPACT (USA)

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

Goal: The goal of IMPACT is to improve depression treatment by providing collaborative care to older adults.

Impact of Community Health Workers on Use of Healthcare Services in the United States: A Systematic Review

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Other Conditions

Goal: The goal of this study was to determine the effect Community Health Worker programs have on healthcare spending.

Impact: The studies show that CHW programs can help reduce emergency department visits and hospital use.

InShape

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

Goal: To reduce drug abuse and increase positive mental and physical health outcomes among college students ages 18-25 years old.

Impact: Tailored health and wellness interventions may reduce risk factors facing college students, while perhaps improving their health-related quality of life.

Insights (Washington and North Carolina)

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

Goal: The goal of Insights is to increase condom use among young women at risk for HIV and other STDs.

Impact: Insights proves that tailored cognitive/behavioral minimal self-help interventions hold promise as HIV/STD prevention strategies for diverse populations of young at-risk women.

Integrating Community Service with Higher Education Student Government Programming (Sonoma County, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Civic Engagement, Teens

Goal: The goal is to integrate community service programs at colleges and universities into the programming objectives of student government organizations in order to achieve greater student involvement and more stable funding.

Intervention to Reduce Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors in Infants (Finland)

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

Goal: To decrease saturated fat consumption and thus reduce coronary heart disease risk factors in young children.

Impact: STRIP's intervention of diet counseling that began at a child's infancy favorably impacted the child's diet through childhood up to ages 8 or 10, but the goal of 2:1 unsaturated-saturated fatty acid ratio in a child's diet was not met for either intervention or control group.

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.