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

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Cancer Prevention & Control, Client-Oriented Screening Interventions: Reducing Out-of-Pocket Costs: Colorectal Cancer (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults

Goal: The goal of the interventions is to reduce client out-of-pocket costs to minimize or remove economic barriers that make it difficult for clients to access cancer screening services.

Impact: Consistently favorable results for interventions that reduce costs for breast cancer screening and several other preventive services suggest that such interventions are likely to be effective for increasing colorectal cancer screening as well.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Cervical Cancer Prevention & Control, Provider-Oriented Screening Interventions: Provider Reminder & Recall Systems (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer

Goal: The goal of incorporating multicomponent interventions for cancer screenings is to increase cervical cancer screenings and pap smears in communities.

Impact: Multicomponent interventions that include strategies that reduce and address structural barriers increase cervical cancer screening rates by the largest margins and evidence shows that these interventions are also cost-effective.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Colorectal Cancer Prevention & Control, Provider-Oriented Screening Interventions: Provider Reminder & Recall Systems (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer

Goal: The goal of incorporating multicomponent interventions for cancer screenings is to increase colorectal cancer screenings, colonoscopies, and FOTB in communities.

Impact: Multicomponent interventions that include strategies that reduce and address structural barriers increase colorectal cancer screening rates by the largest margins and evidence shows that these interventions are also cost-effective.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Reducing Tobacco Use Initiation: Increasing the Unit Price of Tobacco Products (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults

Goal: The goals is to make the use of tobacco products less attractive to young people
who have limited incomes and a variety of ways to spend their money.

Impact: These interventions that increase the price of tobacco products
showed strong evidence of their effectiveness in:
• Reducing tobacco use among adolescents and adults
• Reducing population consumption of tobacco products
• Increasing tobacco use cessation

Children's Futures (Trenton)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families

Goal: Children's Futures' mission is to improve child health and developmental outcomes through public-private collaboration.

Clear the Air (Utah)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: The goal of Clear the Air Utah is to improve the air quality in Utah.

Clinician-Based Cognitive Psychoeducational Intervention for Families (Family Talk)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Families

Goal: The goal of this program is to provide information about mood disorders to parents, equip parents with skills they need to communicate this information to their children, and open dialogue in families about the effects of parental depression.

Impact: Parents in the program scored better in their reports of child-related behavior and attitude changes of parental illness than parents who received a group-format presentation. Children in the program scored higher on measures of improved understanding of parental mood disorder than children who received a group-format lecture.

Communities That Care Coalition (Franklin County, MA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens

Goal: The Communities That Care Coalition's mission is to bring Franklin County schools, parents, youth and the community together to promote protective factors, reduce risk factors, prevent substance use and other risky behaviors, and improve young people's ability to reach their full potential and thrive.

Community-Based Secondary Stroke Prevention (Hong Kong, China)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults

Goal: The goal of this program is to increase knowledge of stroke, encourage self-monitoring, and maintain healthy lifestyle changes to prevent secondary stroke.

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.

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.