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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children
Goal: The mission of the Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior (IVDB) is to empower schools and social service agencies to address violence and destructive behavior, at the point of school entry and beyond, in order to ensure safety and to facilitate the academic achievement and healthy social development of children and youth. The primary goal of this program is to divert antisocial kindergartners from an antisocial behavior pattern during their subsequent school careers and to develop in them the competencies needed to build effective teacher- and peer-related, social-behavioral adjustments.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults
Goal: The program aims to prevent the onset of severe hypertension in habitually active mildly hypertensive adults with a 12-week intermittent football-based or endurance running training.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the FoCaS Project is to improve breast and cervical cancer screening participation among low-income women.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: The purpose is to inform the public of the agency mission, garner support for services and funding and to create volunteer and donation opportunities.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children
Goal: The goal of the FRIENDS Programs is to teach cognitive-behavioral skills to reduce anxiety in elementary school students who are or were exposed to violence.
Impact: The FRIENDS Programs and specific studies of them indicate that school-based anxiety prevention programs can increase standardized mathematics achievement scores, decrease life stressors, and reduce victimization by community violence in children.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Children, Teens, Women
Goal: The goal of Girls' Circles is to enhance girls' abilities so they are able to take full advantage of their talents, academic interests, career pursuits, and potential for healthy relationships.
Impact: The program has shown statistically significant improvements for girls in Girls Circle programs with the following outcomes: increases in self-efficacy, attachment to school, positive body image, and social support, and decreases in self-harming behavior and alcohol use rates.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children
Goal: The goal of this program is to educate children about health and to prevent substance abuse and violence.
Impact: The Great Body Shop shows that comprehensive substance abuse and violence prevention and health curriculums in schools for elementary and middle school students can improve knowledge, values, thinking skills, and behaviors around substance abuse and violence topic areas.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / School Environment, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of school-based health centers is to reduce gaps in education and increase health equity in low-income communities.
Impact: When targeted to low-income communities, school-based health centers are likely to narrow gaps in education and improve health equity.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Teens, Families
Goal: The mission of the Healthy Kids Express Asthma Program is to provide quality asthma care and education to children with asthma and their caretakers in a school environment to work towards goals set by Healthy People 2020 and the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP).
Impact: The Healthy Kids Express Asthma Program serves approximately 600 children a year, improving inhaler technique and asthma knowledge among participants. Children enrolled in the program for two consecutive years have lower school absentee rates and hospitalizations due to asthma.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: Healthy Love seeks to provide a safe, culturally tailored intervention for heterosexual black women to reduce their disproportionately high risk of transmitting and contracting HIV and other STDs. Healthy Love aims to encourage sexual abstinence, HIV testing, and receipt of test results; increase women's condom usage during vaginal sex with male partners; and reduce the number of women's sex partners and unprotected anal and vaginal sex with male partners. Healthy Love also seeks to improve HIV/STD knowledge, self-efficacy for using condoms, intentions to use condoms, and attitudes towards condoms.
Impact: Healthy Love increased participants' likelihood of using condoms, being tested for HIV, and receiving their test results. The intervention also reduced participants' self-described actions with male partners that can increase black women's risks for HIV infection.