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 / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of Cuídate is to reduce HIV transmission among Latino youth through culturally tailored programming.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The Matter of Balance/Volunteer Lay Leader (MOB/VLL) program is designed to reduce the fear of falling, stop the fear of falling cycle, and improve the activity levels among community-dwelling older adults. The goal of the program is to use volunteer lay leaders as facilitators, in order to make the program affordable to offer in the community setting.
Impact: When following up one year after the program, participants reported significant gains in fall management and there was a trend to increased exercise level as well. In addition, participants sustained a reduction in monthly falls.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: The goal of the study was to evaluate the association between Medicaid‐provided nonemergency medical transportation and diabetes care visits.
Impact: The findings of this study underscore the importance of ensuring transportation to Medicaid populations with diabetes, particularly in the rural areas where the prevalence of diabetes and complications are higher and the availability of medical resources lower than in the urban areas.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of Achievers for Life is to work with 6th grade students and their families in order to prevent students from dropping out of high school.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity
Goal: The goal of this program is to promote healthy eating in lower-income areas of Louiville. The initiative is part of a larger program with the goal of redesigning low-income urban neighborhoods to promote active living.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: To mobilize African American communities, public and community-based organizations and optimize resources to eliminate the disparity in breast and cervical cancer morbidity and mortality between African American and Caucasian women.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children
Goal: The primary goal of this clinic is to make immunizations more available to parents in an area where children have been identified as lacking needed immunizations.
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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the study was to prevent STDs in high-risk minority women through three culture-specific small group education and counseling sessions, delivered over time.
Impact: Reinfection rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea were significantly lower at each follow-up among participants in the small-group counseling sessions than in the control group. Integration of behavior-change theory with extensive qualitative data collected in target communities enabled the study to create culturally meaningful strategies to promote the recognition of risk and to stimulate motivation to effect personal change.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Nutrition & Healthy Eating, Rural
Goal: CVAN is the Kansas conduit for tons of healthy produce from the Catholic Charities Mary Martha Organization--the steward of excess highly perishable high quality foods from a huge Walmart Distribution Center in Oklahoma. As food supplies allow, CVAN distributes to the 100 square mile school district and to share with a networked family of pantries and volunteer organizations in five Kansas counties and South Coffeyville, OK. As needed, CVAN has recruited distribution volunteers in covering communities within this economically depressed region. The network family was built upon the CVAN’s supply of fresh produce, but is now blessing this area with distribution of CARES foods during the COVID crisis. Its volunteers are food warriors--winning in the fight against rural hunger.