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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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Step It Up: Taking Steps to Healthy Success (Kansas City)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children

Goal: Kansas’s Step It Up: Taking Steps to Healthy Success (Step It Up) Project aims to work towards making improvements to policies and practices in child care programs with regard to breastfeeding, child nutrition, physical activity, outdoor learning, and reductions in screen time. Step It Up is an extension of the National Early Care and Education Learning Collaboratives Project (ECELC) and uses a similar learning collaborative model.

Impact: Step It Up: Taking Steps to Healthy Success has made great improvements in promoting healthy eating and physical activity. The topics of Child Nutrition and Infant & Child Physical Activity had the highest number of increases in best practices. Breastfeeding & Infant Feeding had the highest percentage of best practices being met at pre-assessment (55%).

Step-by-Step Approach to Sustain a Community Health Worker Intervention (Philadelphia, PA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality

Goal: To find, explore, and implement a sustainable funding stream for community-based healthcare interventions.

Stepping Up To Health (Michigan)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults, Urban

Goal: To determine whether online peer support will increase adherence to an Internet-based pedometer walking program.

Impact: Stepping up to Health shows that online communities can help reduce attrition within online health behavior change interventions.

Strengthening Families Program/Strengthening Hawaii Families (Hawaii)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The program aims to reduce substance abuse risk factors and improve relationships in high-risk families.

Strong African American Families (SAAF) (Georgia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural

Goal: The SAAF program aims to prevent initiation of risk behaviors such as drug abuse, alcohol and cigarette use, and sexual activity in low-income African American preadolescents.

Impact: This program has helped create positive family interactions and support youth and teens as they take the next steps toward a positive future.

Strong-For-Life (Boston, MA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Older Adults

Goal: The goal of Strong-For-Life home-based exercise program is to promote activity and reduce disability among older adults.

Impact: Home-based resistance exercise programs designed for older persons with disabilities hold promise as an effective public health strategy.

StrongPeople Strong Bodies

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults

Goal: StrongPeople Strong Bodies is a community-based strength training program aimed at mid-life and older individuals. The benefits of strength training for older individuals have been studied extensively and include increased muscle mass and strength; improved bone density and reduced risk for osteoporosis and related fractures; reduced risk for diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, depression, and obesity; and improved self-confidence, sleep, and vitality.

Tailoring Family Planning Services to the Special Needs of Adolescents (Central Pennsylvania)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Teens, Women, Rural

Goal: The goal of the study was to address the special psychosocial needs of adolescents and increase contraception use, equip adolescents with the education needed to make responsible decisions related to family planning matters, and decrease unintended pregnancies.

Impact: After a one-year follow-up, teens were less likely to be pregnant. Intermediate findings at six months showed that teens in the experimental group were more likely to continue using a birth control method and less likely to experience difficulty in dealing with contraceptive-related problems.

Talking Parents, Healthy Teens (California)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Family Planning, Teens

Goal: The goal of Talking Parents, Healthy Teens is to help parents improve their communication skills with their adolescent children, promote healthy adolescent sexual development, and reduce risky adolescent sexual behaviors.

Targeted Outreach for Women Act (Florida)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Women's Health, Women

Goal: The goal of the Targeted Outreach for Pregnant Women Act is to improve prenatal care among high risk and HIV-positive pregnant women in order to reduce the number of babies born with HIV-infection and prenatal drug exposure.

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.