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.

Submit a Promising Practice

Activity Bursts in the Classroom (ABC) Fitness Program (Independence, MO)

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

Goal: The project aims to promote a healthy lifestyle and reverse the trend of obesity among students and their families.

Impact: The ABC Fitness Program demonstrates the feasibility of bursts of structured physical activity for elementary school students with the beneficial effects on fitness and other health measures.

Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE) (Ohio)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Literacy

Goal: The goal of this program is to provide literacy skills and other basic skills to the most educationally and economically disadvantaged individuals in the state.

Al's Pals

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

Goal: The goal of the Al's Pals program is to teach children how to practice positive ways to express feelings, relate to others, communicate, brainstorm ideas, solve problems, and differentiate between safe and unsafe substances and situations.

Impact: Studies have shown that the program resulted in higher degrees of positive change in the intervention groups, increases in prosocial behaviors and positive coping behaviors, and decreases in antisocial and negative coping behaviors.

Assessment and Referral (Kansas City, MO)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of Assessment and Referral is to help individuals struggling with a substance use disorder evaluate their needs and strengths and begin to make healthy choices that improve the overall quality of their lives.

Impact: First Call provided over 1,700 assessments in 2013, and more than half of clients showed improvements in their Addiction Severity Index (ASI) scores or a decrease in substance use.

Assisting in Rehabilitating Kids (ARK) (Mississippi)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens

Goal: The goal of Assisting in Rehabilitating Kids (ARK) is to increase abstinence and safer sex behaviors among substance-dependent adolescents.

Impact: The ARK program successfully increased sexual abstinence among those who received all components: health information, behavior skills training, and risk-sensitization manipulation, with the inclusion of the latter being more resistant to decay over time.

Association of Rideshare-Based Transportation Services and Missed Primary Care Appointments: A Clinical Trial (Philadelphia)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Urban

Goal: The goal of the clinical trial was to evaluate the association between rideshare-based medical transportation and missed primary care appointments among Medicaid patients.

Impact: Although the uptake of ridesharing was low and did not decrease missed primary care appointments for this particular clinical trial, future studies trying to reduce missed appointments can explore alternative delivery models or target populations with stronger transportation needs.

Asthma Basics for Children (ABC) (New York, NY)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the program was to provide a multi-layered asthma management program for parents, children, and staff of early childhood centers.

Impact: The ABC program demonstrates that a multi-layered approach can improve asthma outcomes among preschoolers with a combination of parent and provider education having the greatest impact.

At the Crossroads (ATC) (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: The mission of At The Crossroads is to reach out to homeless youth and young adults at their point of need, and provide them with services and programs that will empower them and improve their lives.

AZTech Intelligent Transportation System (Maricopa County, AZ)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Transportation

Goal: The AZTech Executive Committee set the following objectives:

1. Integrate the existing Intelligent Transportation Infrastructure (ITI) into a regional system.
2. Establish a regional integrated traveler information system for the multi-modal travelers.
3. Demonstrate the benefits of integrated community-based transportation systems to achieve system efficiencies.
4. Provide a showcase of how technology can improve the overall quality of life, conserve energy and reduce pollution.
5. Set a worldwide standard of excellence for deployment of ITS in a major economy.

Baby, Be Safe (Washington D.C.)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety, Children, Families

Goal: The goal of Baby, Be Safe is to increase the use of child injury prevention measures.

Impact: Participants who received tailored educational materials reported greater adoption of home and car safety behaviors than those receiving generic information. This study offers promising findings to help prevent injuries to young children.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

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.
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:

The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
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:

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.
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.
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.