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 Good Idea, Education / Educational Attainment, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The goal is to guide students from underserved communities towards careers in healthcare, simultaneously fulfilling workforce needs.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Teens, Women
Goal: The Body Project is a dissonance intervention designed to help women in high school and college resist societal and cultural pressures to conform to an idealized notion of what it means to be 'thin' and to help increase body acceptance. A reduction in thin-ideal internalization should result in reduced use of unhealthy weight-control behaviors, decreased eating disorder symptoms, and overall increase in mood and well-being.
Impact: The Body Project program has yielded numerous significant benefits at posttest and 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years after program implementation. These include significant reductions in body dissatisfaction, bulimic symptoms and psychosocial impairment compared to control group participants.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Rural
Goal: The goal of the Bootheel Heart Health Project was to reduce risk factors for cardiovascular disease and decrease morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular disease.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Governance, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The mission of the Metro Public Health Department is to protect and improve the health and well-being of all people in Metropolitan Nashville.
Impact: Metro Public Health Department of Nashville/Davidson County has implemented department-wide strategies to address existing health inequities.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Cambridge-Somerville Healthy Homes Project is to lower the frequency of asthma attacks in children and help families make their homes safer.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Teens, Families, Rural
Goal: Camp Erin's goal is to help children through the grieving process by offering grief education and emotional support in a weekend-long camp.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Families
Goal: The goal of Care-A-Van is to provide access to medical care for uninsured and impoverished working families.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve retention of hospital employees to address critical shortages in health care staffing.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Older Adults
Goal: To provide transportation and improve patient satisfaction for nonemergency medical services.
Impact: CareMore's NEMT was so successful in the first 3 months, the programs were expanded in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Virginia.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Rural
Goal: The mission of the Caring Bear Picnic is to educate children and parents on how to live healthy lifestyles through hands-on activities.
Impact: For over 30 years, the Caring Bear Picnic has educated children and parents on how to live healthy lifestyles through hands-on activities.