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 Good Idea, Community / Public Safety
Goal: The goal of this legislation is to build a safe and connected transportation systems to serve pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, elderly and disabled residents. This legislation aims to reduce pedestrian and cyclist fatalities.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Families
Goal: The goal of Early Head Start (EHS) is to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, enhance the development of very young children, and promote healthy family functioning. The goal of Head Start is to increase school readiness of young children in low-income families.
Impact: Studies have demonstrated positive effects of the program for both 3- and 4-year-old children on pre-reading, pre-writing, vocabulary, and parent reports of children’s literacy skills. For 3-year-olds, a greater number of parents reported improved access to health care and better health status.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women
Goal: The initiative's primary purpose was to reduce infant mortality by 50 percent and generally improve maternal and infant health in at-risk communities.
Impact: 20% of the Healthy Start program sites had significantly lower rates of low-birth-weight babies than their comparisons. 20% of the sites also had significantly lower rates of very-low-birth-weight babies than their comparisons. Four of the sites had significantly lower pre-term birth rates.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Urban
Goal: The goal of HELPS Programs is to strengthen students’ reading fluency so they will be better able to focus on and improve other important reading skills, including comprehension.
Impact: HELPS is a supplemental curriculum that improves students reading fluency, a commonly neglected aspect of children's core reading curriculum, in order to help them become successful readers.
Filed under Good Idea, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The program’s goal is to provide comprehensive child development and family support services to families with children 0–3 in order for parents to support and encourage their children’s early growth, development and school readiness.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Families
Goal: The program's overall goal is to support parents in their role as their child's first teacher by providing parents with literacy training and children with early development skill building, including language skills.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Other Conditions
Goal: The goal of this study was to determine the effect Community Health Worker programs have on healthcare spending.
Impact: The studies show that CHW programs can help reduce emergency department visits and hospital use.
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.
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 / Mental Health & Mental Disorders
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends universal school-based cognitive behavioral therapy programs to prevent or reduce depression and anxiety symptoms among school-aged children and adolescents.
The CPSTF also recommends Targeted School-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Programs to Reduce Depression and Anxiety Symptoms for students who are assessed to be at increased risk for these conditions, and group and individual CBT to reduce psychological harm from traumatic events among children and adolescents.