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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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Comprehensive Gang Model

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce gang violence.

Congenital Heart Disease Screening Program (Washington, D.C.)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families

Goal: The Congenital Heart Disease Screening Program values early diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) with a goal of making screening for CHD a standard practice for all newborns.

Impact: The physicians at Children's National in the National Heart Institute created a toolkit that nurseries may use to start a screening program to improve detection of serious CHD.

Cornell Waste Management Institute Food Scrap Composting Project (New York)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment

Goal: The goal of the Cornell Waste Management Institute project was to increase the capacity to compost the tremendous amount of food scraps produced in New York State.

Dana-Farber Mammography Van (Massachusetts)

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

Goal: The goal of the Mammography Van is to make high quality breast cancer screening services more accessible to women who are medically underserved.

Delaware Juvenile Drug Court Diversion Program (Delaware)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent further criminal behavior among first-time juvenile misdemeanor drug offenders.

Diabetes Self Management Education (Brinkley, AR)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Diabetes, Rural

Goal: Please define your project/intervention goals:

The goals of this project are:
-to promote individual control of diabetes.
-to help patients become partners with their healthcare providers in the care of their disease.
-to help diabetes patients realize that small continous changes do make big differences.

Direct Instruction

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to maximize learning for all students.

Downtown College Prep (San Jose, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Educational Attainment, Teens

Goal: Downtown Colled Prep's mission is to prepare underachieving students—who will be the first in their families to go to college—to thrive at four-year universities.

Drive Clean Across Texas (Texas)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: The goal of this program is to inspire changes in driving behavior that will help clean up the air in Texas.

Driving Decisions Workbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Public Safety, Older Adults

Goal: The goal of the Driving Decisions Workbook is to increase self-awareness of driving skills in older adults.

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.