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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.

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Communities Caring for Children (Minnesota)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of Communities Caring for Children is to increase the number of infants and children who receive immunizations on schedule.

Communities Putting Prevention to Work: Cherokee Nation

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The mission of Communities Putting Prevention to Work: Cherokee Nation is to promote healthy eating, physical activity and increase tobacco cessation throughout the tribe’s jurisdictional boundaries.

Impact: Communities Putting Prevention to Work: Cherokee Nation works to prevent obesity and tobacco use through various programs including chronic disease screenings, farm-to-school programs, and smoking cessation classes available to all Cherokees in the service area.

Community Based Mentoring Program: Palm Beach (Palm Beach and Martin, FL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens, Adults

Goal: The goal of the program is to make a positive difference in the lives of children, primarily through professionally guided one-to-one relationships with caring adults, and to assist them in achieving their highest potential, as they grow to become confident, competent and caring individuals.

Community Nursing Program (Indiana (northeast))

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: This initiative strives to alleviate nursing shortages in underserved areas.

Community Voice: Taking it to the People (Lynchburg, VA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the program is to decrease African American infant mortality through raising awareness of racial health disparities, encouraging safe and healthy lifestyle practices, and providing correct perinatal health education.

Comprehensive Approaches to Raising Education Standards (CARES) (California)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Adults

Goal: The program's mission is to improve the quality of early learning programs by focusing on increasing the quality, effectiveness, and retention of early educators.

Comprehensive Diabetes Lower Extremity Amputation Prevention Program (Louisiana)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural

Goal: The goal of the Comprehensive Diabetes – Lower Extremities Amputation Prevention initiative is to improve foot care and reduce lower extremity amputations among people with diabetes.

Cross-Sector Collaboration for Vulnerable Populations Reduces Utilization and Strengthens Community Partnerships

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The objective of this article is to describe Project Restoration's approach to cross-sector collaboration with a shared population of high utilizing community members, describe the process and outcomes of the collaboration, provide strategies to mitigate challenges that arise during collaboration and offer insights to inform similar initiatives in communities nationwide.

Impact: Hospitals across the region are assessing ways to establish a centralized infrastructure to collaboratively address the complexities of individual cases, as well as a regional council to explore process improvements to enhance the lives of vulnerable populations.

Diabetes Community Collaboration Program (Minnesota)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Diabetes

Goal: The goal of the DCCP is to improve diabetes care and education in Minnesota.

Dining with Dignity (Kansas City, MO (Historic Northeast))

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Poverty, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: As a leader in Kansas City's emergency food network, ECS is committed to providing access to healthy food for the community's food-insecure households. Its mission is to engage the Episcopal and broader communities in feeding the hungry and empowering the poor to move beyond the barriers of poverty with dignity - in short, feeding the hungry & changing lives. ECS is best known for the Kansas City Community Kitchen (KCCK) in the heart of the urban food desert. ECS also works to provide meaningful training experience through the Culinary Cornerstones Training Program, a 30-week immersive program preparing individuals for careers in the culinary world.

Impact: Since implementing the new service model, there has been a 10% average increase in the number of daily meals served at the Kansas City Community Kitchen. There has also been a large increase of volunteers, with an increasing number of recurring volunteers.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. 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.
  2. 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:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.