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

McNeil Island Corrections Center Family and Fatherhood Program (Tacoma, WA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment

Goal: The goal of this program is to promote positive family relationships, help incarcerated fathers learn skills to be active and involved fathers, encourage incarcerated fathers to
provide financial support for their children, facilitate programs for offender families through community partnerships, and provide constructive opportunities for children to participate in special activities with their incarcerated father.

Medical Legal Partnerships: Embedding Civil Legal Aid Services in Care for High-Utilizing Patients (Lancaster, PA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Governance, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the pilot was to assess the impact on health care use of addressing patients’ civil legal problems – the social, financial, or environmental problems that require assistance from lawyers to remedy. The lawyer was embedded in the health care team and present during case management discussions to identify specific civil legal problems and to help the team better understand how to address them. Additionally, this partnership provided civil legal aid services to patients when needed in a community health care system.

Impact: This pilot shows a medical-legal partnership for the super-utilizers of healthcare can lead to efficiencies within the health care system, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes among the most vulnerable patients.

Medical-Legal Partnership (Kansas City Metropolitan Area)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Prevention & Safety, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the medical-legal partnership is to improve health outcomes through quality legal services.

Impact: The Medical-Legal Partnership provides legal assistance to patients on issues that directly or indirectly affect health.

Medication Management Improvement System (MMIS) (Burbank, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Older Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce medication-related problems among senior home health patients.

Men Unlearning Violence (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Domestic Violence & Abuse, Men, Urban

Goal: Men Unlearning Violence helps men transform their relationships with people and with themselves by learning to respond instead of react, and replacing control with intimacy.

Methodist Germantown Diabetes-Self Management Education & Support (DSMES) Service (Shelby County, TN)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Diabetes, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The organization goal for the DSMES Service is to help each person living with diabetes attain knowledge and/or skills that may enable and empower them to perform effective self-care, promote wellness and prevent sickness and complications

Metropolitan Region I Cardiovascular Disease Risk Screening and Education (Region I, LA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality

Goal: The objectives of the Cardiovascular Disease Risk Screening and Education program are as follows:

-To identify and provide early intervention for those with or at risk for untreated or uncontrolled hypertension
-To screen and identify those at risk for cardiovascular and renal disease
-To educate those found at risk for CVD
-To provide early chronic disease intervention
-To facilitate access for long term chronic disease care with partner sites

MHD-MWW Water Quality Technical Workgroup (Milwaukee, WI)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Urban

Goal: The overriding goal of the workgroup is to develop, institute and evaluate preventive measures (e.g. procedures, protocols and policies) that would mitigate the impact of any future waterborne disease incidents. Post 9/11, the workgroup has evolved to include discussions on water security in the context of an intentional contamination event.

Milwaukee Extreme Heat Plan (Milwaukee, WI)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Mortality Data, Children, Older Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce heat-related morbidity and mortality in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee Tobacco-Free Sports Program (Milwaukee, WI)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children

Goal: Program objectives are to:

- Plan and conduct five sets of interactive tobacco prevention mini-sessions for youth and parents in multiple school-linked settings;
- Plan and implement one annual media advocacy event coordinated with the national Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
- Plan and conduct tobacco educational outreach and implementation guidance for coaches and athletic staff. Teen Presenters deliver tobacco prevention mini-sessions to younger children, grades 1-6.

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.