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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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Commit to Quit (USA)

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

Goal: The goal of Commit to Quit is to help female smokers quit smoking through group programming and exercise.

Common Sense Parenting (CSP) (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families

Goal: The goal of Common Sense Parenting is to develop or enhance parenting skills.

Impact: Results from the Common Sense Parenting program indicated improvement in child behavior, parent attitudes, family satisfaction and parent problem-solving ability.

Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) (USA)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants

Goal: The clear goal of CARE is to foster projects that will become self-sustaining and use CARE funding as seed money. The CARE Process is designed to encourage communities to enlist the support of project partners that will enable the project to continue even without EPA resources. Rather than supporting one time projects, CARE will support community partnerships that will endure and provide environmental benefits long into the future.

Community-based Diabetes and Hypertension Preventive Program (Honolulu)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The purpose of this project was to develop rapport with a Chinese Community Association and then establish preventive diabetic and hypertension programs with the Chinese in Chinatown, Hawaii.

Connect (New York, NY)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of Connect is to increase relationship communication and safer sex practices among couples.

Connecting Partners through the Community Information Exchange (San Diego, CA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality

Goal: Improve care coordination for vulnerable patients through an online platform.

Impact: Among clients enrolled in the CIE, participants experienced a reduced number of emergency medical services trips and increased stable housing rates.

Cool Kids (Australia)

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

Goal: To teach children and parents how to manage anxiety disorders.

Cooperative Learning

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

Goal: The goal of cooperative learning is to establish positive interdependence among students. When positive interdependence is established in group learning situations, the quality of peer interaction improves. Instead of competing with or ignoring one another, students are more likely to promote the success of one another through mutual assistance, emotional support, and the sharing of ideas or resources. These positive social interactions, in turn, encourage greater social acceptance and the development of positive relationships among students and, in educational contexts, promote greater academic motivation and achievement (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). In fact, research on social interaction suggests that gains in social skills alone are insufficient to reduce social problems among students and encourage more positive peer relations. Only positive interdependence, and the subsequent positive social interactions that arise from it, can motivate youth to re-evaluate previous conclusions regarding the social desirability of others (Bierman, 2004).

Impact: Cooperative learning can have positive effects on adolescent bullying, alcohol use, and tobacco use.

Coordinated Approach To Child Health (CATCH) (USA)

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

Goal: The goal of Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) is to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and reduce obesity in preschool, elementary, and middle school aged children.

Impact: CATCH is successful in improving participants' diet and physical activity, and the results lasted three years after participation.

Coping Cat

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to help children recognize and deal with anxiety.

Impact: Studies have found that participants in the Coping Cat program show significant reductions in anxiety and fear, improvements in ability to cope with dreaded situations, and a reduction in the frequency of negative thoughts during the week.

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.
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