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 / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Women, Families
Goal: To increase daily fruits and vegetables servings by half in women served by WIC participants with the long term goal of reducing risk of cancer.
Impact: The Maryland WIC 5-A-Day Program shows that while multi-faceted community based interventions can effectively promote and sustain dietary change among low-income populations in order to reduce the risk of cancer, many obstacles remain in implementing such programs.
Meal Delivery Programs Reduce the Use of Costly Health Care in Dually Eligible Medicare And Medicaid Beneficiaries (Massachusetts)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults, Older Adults, Urban
Goal: In this study, it was sought to examine whether home delivery of medically tailored meals or non-tailored food reduces the use of selected health care services and medical spending among Commonwealth Care Alliance members. Because there is knowingly an association between food insecurity and emergency room visits, it was hypothesized that the medically tailored meals would cause a reduction in ER visits and other costly healthcare services and expenditures.
Impact: Researchers estimate monthly net savings of $220 per participant for medically tailored meals and $10 per participant for the non-tailored food program. This study suggests that vulnerable patients, in this case, the dually eligible Medicaid and Medicare, can benefit from meal delivery programs.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the Medical Nutrition Therapy program is to decrease perinatal complications in pregnant women with type 2 Diabetes in Mexico City.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program is to increase fruit and vegetable consumption behavior in participants of the Women, Infants, and Children program in Genessee County, Michigan.
Impact: Participants of the program increased their fruit and vegetable consumption and the program had a positive effect on participants attitudes toward consuming fruits and vegetables.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children
Goal: The goal of the MEND program is to reduce obesity levels in children by offering free healthy living programs that aim to encourage small lifestyle changes that improve health.
Impact: The MEND program was successful in reducing waist circumferences and BMI scores while increasing cardiovascular fitness, physical activity, and self esteem in children placed within the intervention group. The results of this study suggest that the MEND program is a promising intervention to combat rising child obesity rates.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The objective of the study was to characterize the population of older adults on waiting lists for home-delivered meals and compare their health and health-related needs to the population of older adults living in the community.
Impact: Between baseline and follow-up, respondents receiving daily-delivered meals were more likely to exhibit:
• Improvement in mental health (i.e., anxiety)
• Improvement in self-rated health
• Reductions in the rate of falls
• Improvement in feelings of isolation and loneliness
• Decreases in worry about being able to remain in home
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The National Diabetes Prevention Program encourages collaboration among federal agencies, community-based organizations, employers, insurers, health care professionals, academia, and other stakeholders to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes among people with prediabetes in the United States.
Impact: The National Diabetes Prevention Program is a cost-effective method to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes among individuals with prediabetes.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults
Goal: The goal of this nurse-led program is to improve secondary prevention among patients with coronary heart disease.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Urban
Goal: The goal of this intervention is to improve motor skills and fitness in young children. Fitness and motor skills development early in life can lay the foundation for successful lifelong physical activity participation.
Impact: A short-duration lifestyle intervention can have a lasting effect on children's fitness and motor skills development.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children
Goal: NAP SACC aims to improve policies, practices, and environments in childcare through better nutrition, increased exercise, and staff-child interactions.
Impact: Intervention centers are more likely to make significant changes in nutrition policies, environments, and practices. The intervention has been replicated in other states to help improve nutrition and physical activity policies and practices.