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

The Memphis Environmental Court (Shelby County, TN)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Governance, Families

Goal: The Memphis Enviromental Court was designed to serve as the chief vehicle for enforcing a wide range of laws relating to the health and quality of life of its residents, and to give new meaning to the term "expedient justice" by its ability to respond in a quick and consistent manner. In 1991 the Tennessee State Legislature created the Shelby County Environmental Court, and expanded the new court's powers to include the "injunctive authority" to mandate that defendants comply with the environmental codes.

The Winds of Change (Roaring Fork Valley, CO)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Civic Engagement, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The mission of Asistencia para Latinos is to empower the Latino community towards self-sufficiency through service, education, advocacy, and inter-agency collaboration. The Winds of Change is a movement developed by Asistencia para Latinos to address the issues of cultural isolation and language barriers presented by the new population of immigrants coming to the rural resort areas of Colorado.

Volunteer Friends (Pasadena, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Transportation, Older Adults

Goal: The Beverly Foundation's mission is to foster new ideas and options to enhance mobility and transportation for today's and tomorrow's older population.

Zoning for a Healthy Baltimore

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of Zoning for a Healthy Baltimore is to influence the final version of Baltimore’s new zoning code by informing stakeholders and decision-makers about the new zoning code’s potential to create healthy communities and decrease health disparities, with an emphasis on preventing obesity and crime.

Impact: Zoning for a Healthy Baltimore is an HIA of the Baltimore zoning code rewrite in order to maximize the potential to create healthier communities. Since publication, Baltimore has revised its zoning code to incorporate dispersal standards and other strategies related to placement of alcohol outlets.

Advancing Diabetes Self Management: La Clinica de La Raza (Oakland, CA)

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

Goal: The goal of Advancing Diabetes Self Management at La Clinica de La Raza was to improve health outcomes of those suffering from type 2 diabetes.

Brief Strategic Family Therapy (Miami, FL)

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

Goal: The goal of BSFT is to improve a youth's behavior problems by improving family interactions that are presumed to be directly related to the child's symptoms, thus reducing risk factors and strengthening protective factors for adolescent drug abuse and other conduct problems.

Impact: Adolescents who participated in BSFT showed a significantly greater reduction in conduct problems than adolescents in the comparison condition, who received a participatory-learning group intervention. BSFT participants also showed a significantly greater reduction in socialized aggression.

Child Development-Community Policing Program (New Haven, CT)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Domestic Violence & Abuse, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Child Development-Community Policing Program (CDCP) is to reduce the negative consequences of exposure to violent and potentially traumatic events among children and their families.

Impact: The CDCP Program shows that through community policing efforts, it is possible to successfully intervene early in an attempt to ameliorate the effects of children's exposure to violence.

Families in Action (Kennesaw, GA)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent substance abuse among youth.

Fight BAC! (Hartford, CT)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Food Safety, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the Fight BAC! campaign is to educate the public about four basic practices - clean, separate, cook and chill - that reduce the risk of foodborne illness.

Impact: The study showed that culturally competent, social marketing campaigns are likely to improve awareness, knowledge, and attitudes around food safety among Latino consumers.

Foundations of Learning Project (Newark, New Jersey)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children

Goal: The program's goal was to improve child behavioral problems during the early preschool years.

Impact: The FOL program positively impacted preschool children's behavior in the classroom.

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.