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 / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of Healthy Families Palm Beach is to prevent child abuse and neglect.
Impact: The Healthy Families program improves birth outcomes, nurtures child development, prevents child abuse and neglect, improves family functioning, and help parents develop more positive beliefs in their parental roles.
Medicaid Savings Resulted When Community Health Workers Matched Those With Needs To Home And Community Care (Arkansas)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Government Assistance, Older Adults
Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce costs by using specially trained community health workers to help connect people with unmet long-term needs and/or those at risk of entering nursing homes to Medicaid home and community-based services.
Impact: Similar interventions may help other localities achieve cost-saving and equitable access to publicly funded long-term care options other than institutional care.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Urban
Goal: The goal of Prime Time Palm Beach County is to improve the quality of school-age afterschool programs through assessment, guidance, and support.
Impact: Based on the 2009 study findings, Prime Time's Quality Improvement System resulted in improvements made to afterschool programs which enhanced quality programming and important developmental learning experiences for youth.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program is to teach parents/caregivers effective parenting skills, create a support system for their children, and equip participants with non-violent techniques to encourage a safe environment at home and in the community.
Impact: ACT program has been shown to prevent child maltreatment and promote positive parenting skills, including reducing physical violence towards children, improving knowledge of appropriate discipline, and improving parent methods for teaching children nonviolent social skills.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of ATLAS is to reduce anabolic steroid, alcohol, and other illicit drug use by adolescent male athletes.
Impact: Student participants of ATLAS had significantly lower intent to use anabolic steroids at both the end of the athletic season and at the 1-year follow-up. Students in the intervention also significantly reduced illicit drug use and were significantly less likely to report drinking and driving.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use
Goal: The goal of Behavioral Couples Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse is to improve success rates for treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse by involving intimate partners in the treatment process.
Impact: Numerous studies of the program have shown positive outcomes in five areas: substance abuse, quality of relationship with partner, treatment compliance, intimate partner violence, and children's psychosocial functioning. BCT clients also reported more relationship satisfaction than non-participants.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Teens
Goal: The aims of the BASICS program are 1) to reduce alcohol consumption and its adverse consequences, 2) to promote healthier choices among young adults, and 3) to provide important information and coping skills for risk reduction.
Impact: Students who received a brief individual preventive intervention had significantly greater reductions in negative consequences that persisted over a 4-year period than their control-group counterparts. For those individuals receiving the brief intervention, dependence symptoms were more likely to decrease and less likely to increase.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Adults
Goal: The mission of Communities Putting Prevention to Work: San Antonio is to promote environmental changes to prevent obesity and make San Antonio one of the healthiest and most active communities in the nation.
Impact: Communities Putting Prevention to Work: San Antonio aims to reduce obesity by building accessible walking trails, providing bike-share programs, organizing free fitness programs and highlighting healthy eating options for the residents of San Antonio.
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Interventions to Reduce Sexual Risk Behaviors or Increase Protective Behaviors to Prevent Acquisition of HIV in Men Who Have Sex with Men: Individual-, Group-, and Community-Level Behavioral Interventions (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Men's Health, Men
Goal: The goal of the HIV behavioral interventions program is to reduce unprotected anal intercourse among men who have sex with men.
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends individual-level HIV behavioral interventions for adult men who have sex with men to reduce unprotected anal intercourse. Related findings recommend HIV behavioral interventions at the group level and community level.
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Promoting Health Equity, Education Programs and Policies: Full-Day Kindergarten (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children
Goal: Children in low-income families often experience delays in language and other development by the age of three. Compensating for these delays before children begin regular schooling can be critical to providing them with equal opportunities for lifelong employment, income, and health.
Impact: Outcomes included self-confidence, ability to work or play with others, independence, and school attendance by the end of kindergarten or the beginning of first grade.