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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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Violence Intervention Program (VIP) (Baltimore, MD)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Domestic Violence & Abuse

Goal: The program aims to reduce the frequency and the severity of recidivism
for violent injury and criminal activity among persons
living in and around Baltimore.

Impact: Participants of the Violence Intervention Program saw a decrease in repeat hospitalizations, a decrease in violent crime and a higher rate of employment compared to those not in the program.

Violence Intervention Program (VIP) - Baltimore (Baltimore, MD)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Teens, Adults, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Violence Intervention Program (VIP) is to reduce the number of repeat victims of intentional violent injury by providing assessment, counseling, and social support from a multi-disciplinary team.

Impact: Patients who participated in the Violence Intervention Program were less likely to be re-hospitalized due to violent injury.

Walk in to Work Out (Glasgow, Scotland)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of Walk in to Work Out is to increase daily physical activity.

Walking School Bus (Houston, TX)

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

Goal: The goal of the "walking school bus" is to increase children's rates of active commuting to school and physical activity.

Welvista (South Carolina)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults

Goal: The goal of Welvista is to provide prescription medications to those who cannot afford them.

West Nile Virus - Metropolitan Atlanta Surveillance Task Force (Atlanta, GA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to create a regional approach to emerging infection based on public education, environmental monitoring, and disease surveillance.

Women to Women

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

Goal: Women to Women aims to provide social support for chronically ill rural women to positively affect social support, self-esteem, empowerment, self-efficacy in order to decrease stress, depression, and loneliness to improve one’s adaptation to living with a chronic disease.

The overall goal of WTW is to use technology to enhance the potential for rural women to more successfully adapt to their chronic illnesses through computer-based support and education research by providing support groups and health education via the Internet.

Impact: The WTW project shows that computer-based interventions can result in improved self-esteem, social support, and empowerment among rural women with chronic illness.

Worcester Goods for Guns Buyback (G4G) Program (Worcester, MA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goals of this program are three-fold: first, to remove unwanted improperly stored guns from homes; second, to educate the community about the increased risk of gun-related injuries in the home and the importance of safe gun storage; and third, to identify individuals possessing improperly stored guns at home and provide them with safety information and alternatives.

Impact: This program shows a strong collaboration between health care providers and public safety offices and showcases a low-cost means of removing unwanted firearms from the community. Additionally, most participants felt their homes were safer after turning in their firearm(s).

Year Up

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy, Adults

Goal: Year Up's mission is to close the Opportunity Divide by ensuring that young adults gain the skills, experiences, and support that will empower them to reach their potential through careers and higher education.

Impact: These approaches tend to be intensive and comprehensive, address psycho-social skills as well as occupation-specific competencies, provide opportunities for work-based learning, engage employers, incorporate evidence-based practices, and emphasize continuous improvement.

Young Parents Program (Boston, MA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Young Parents Program is to help inner city teenage parents learn positive attitudes, behaviors, and parenting skills so that their children experience healthy growth and development a during their early and critical years.

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.