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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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Partners in School Innovation (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: Partners in School Innovation enables public schools in high-poverty Bay Area communities to achieve educational equity through school-based reform.

Petitioning EPA to Add New Chemicals to the Toxics Release Inventory (Oakland, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Coalition was to encourage the EPA to add dioxins as reportable chemicals unter the Toxics Release Inventory

Picture Me Healthy (Madera County, CA)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve immunization rates in Madera County.

Project ACHIEVE (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / School Environment, Children, Teens

Goal: Project ACHIEVE's ultimate goal is to help design and implement effective school and schooling processes to maximize the academic and social/emotional/behavioral progress and achievement of all students.

Project CAFE (Los Angeles)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of Project CAFE is to identify ways to increase access and availability of healthy foods in Los Angeles neighborhoods in order to decrease obesity and diabetes.

Project Homeless Connect (San Francisco)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Urban

Goal: The mission of Project Homeless Connect (PHC) is to connect homeless San Franciscans with the care they need to move forward. The goals of Project Homeless Connect are to:

- Improve access to services for homeless San Franciscans.
- Improve the system of care through collaboration and the sharing of best practices among San Francisco’s homeless service provider community.
- Engage and increase the involvement of the business, nonprofit community, and individual volunteers to work together to provide access to services for homeless San Franciscans.
- To leverage the private sector, corporations, and foundations to expand service capacity and funds.

Project ReConnect (Sonoma, CA)

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

Goal: The goal of Project ReConnect is to enable HIV-positive people to explore career, educational, and volunteer activities and to de-stigmatize HIV through education and advocacy.

Promoting Access to Health (PATH) for Women (Los Angeles, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Cancer, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of this program is to extend lifesaving prevention programs and screening services across a variety of cultures by giving communities the materials and plans to implement an effective intervention while allowing them to execute these plans in a manner and at a pace that resonates with their own culture and community.

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Adults

Goal: The mission of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is to create a nationwide network of trails from former rail lines and connecting corridors to build healthier places for healthier people.

Impact: Rails-to-Trails Conservancy encourages people of all ages and abilities to get outside and be active on a rail-trail. The organization serves 150,000 members and supporters on over 20,000 miles of rail-trail.

Reading Partners (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Urban

Goal: Reading Partners mission is to help children become lifelong readers by empowering communities to provide individualized instruction with measurable results.

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.