Promising Practices

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

Goal: To prevent or delay the onset of underage alcohol and tobacco use by encouraging healthy beliefs and attitudes about abstaining from substance use and by enhancing critical thinking skills to transform students into active media consumers.

Impact: Students who participated in the Media Detective program displayed a greater understanding of media deconstruction skills and persuasive intent. They also had greater self-efficacy to refuse substances compared to students who did not participate in the program.

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

Goal: The goals of this program are to establish a single application for school-based youth prevention programs; provide a common language and approach for parent, community, and student health programs; and reinforce prevention messages from a variety of sources.

Impact: Students who received the Michigan Model curriculum had significantly better health outcomes in several areas: social and emotional health, interpersonal skills, aggressive behavior, safety attitudes and skills, physical activity skills, nutrition behavior, drug refusal skills, recent alcohol and tobacco use, and intentions to use alcohol and smoke cigarettes.

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana among adolescents.

Impact: Evaluations of the project showed that there was a smaller increase in students who intend to use cigarettes, alcohol, and tobacco within the upcoming months and that there were significant effects on the proportion of students reporting the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and tobacco.

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

Goal: The goal of the promising practice is to reduce binge-drinking behavior in college students using motivational interviewing and personalized feedback techniques.

Impact: At an eight-week follow-up, all four groups reduced their consumption, peak BAC, consequences, and dependence symptoms.

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

Goal: The goals of the program are to 1) assist mothers in obtaining treatment, maintaining recovery, and resolving the complex problems associated with their substance abuse, 2) guarantee that the children are in a safe environment and receiving appropriate health care, 3) effectively link families with community resources, and 4) demonstrate successful strategies for working with this population and thus reduce the numbers of future drug- and alcohol-affected children.

Impact: At a 36-month follow-up women in PCAP were more likely to have received alcohol/drug treatment than the control group. Cost savings were suggested by a reduction in length of out-of-home care and prevention of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of Pathways to Housing, Inc. is to provide independent housing, treatment services for physical and mental health, and employment to mentally ill individuals who are chronically homeless.

Impact: Pathways to Housing has received numerous awards for its projects in New York City, Philadelphia, and D.C. In addition to achieving large effects in terms of housing outcomes, compared with standard care in the community, Housing First also improves community functioning and quality of life.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality

Goal: Project Access Durham County seeks to provide comprehensive healthcare to low-income, uninsured individuals residing in the county for at least six months.

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

Goal: The program’s goal is to delay the age when young people begin drinking and to reduce drinking among those who have already started.

Impact: Studies have shown that by the end of the intervention, participating students were significantly less likely to drink alcohol than nonparticipants. Also, students who did not use alcohol before participating in the program were less likely to use alcohol after the intervention than similar youth who did not participate.

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to decrease alcohol, tobacco, and drug use and to decrease violence and weapons-carrying among high school students.

Impact: At 2-year follow-up, students in Project TND schools were about half as likely to use tobacco when compared with students in control schools. Students in Project TND schools were about one-fifth as likely to use hard drugs relative to similar students in control schools.

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

Goal: The PHLAME Study had four primary goals: (1) Increase physical activity to 30 minutes each day; (2) Reduce percent calories from fat to less than 30%; (3) Increase servings of fruits and vegetables to at least 5 per day; and (4) Improve energy balance and normalize body fat.