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 / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce or stop smoking among adolescents.
Impact: At 3-month follow-up, 17% of youths in the treatment conditions reported having quit smoking for at least 30 days, compared with only 8% of those teens in the control condition. These positive effects were also demonstrated when moved from a clinic setting to the classroom, as students in the program condition experienced a greater reduction in weekly smoking and monthly smoking, at 6-and-12-month follow-ups.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity
Goal: The goal of the study was to evaluate a community-based food support intervention in the San Francisco Bay Area for people living with HIV and/or type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and potential impact of the intervention on nutritional, mental health, disease management, healthcare utilization, and physical health outcomes.
Impact: Comprehensive, medically appropriate food support is feasible and may improve multiple health outcomes for food-insecure individuals living with chronic health conditions.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults
Goal: The goal of Project PREVENT is to reduce behavioral risk factors for colorectal cancer among individuals with positive screenings.
Impact: A significantly greater proportion of Project PREVENT participants reduced their multiple risk factor score when compared to the control group (47% vs. 35%). Intervention participants also had significantly greater multivitamin intake and significantly reduced red meat consumption.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
Goal: The goal of Project SWAT is to reduce the population of mosquitoes potentially carrying West Nile Virus by applying larvicide to common breeding habitats.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to decrease alcohol, tobacco, and drug use and to decrease violence and weapons-carrying among high school students.
Impact: At 2-year follow-up, students in Project TND schools were about half as likely to use tobacco when compared with students in control schools. Students in Project TND schools were about one-fifth as likely to use hard drugs relative to similar students in control schools.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent or reduce tobacco use among children and adolescents.
Impact: One study found that Project the project reduced initiation of cigarette smoking in the two years following the program by 26% when compared to a control group. Students showed increased knowledge of tobacco addiction, related diseases, and media influences and had improved communication, refusal, and coping skills.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The primary goal of the School Lunch Initiative is to transform the way Berkeley public school students eat lunch and to educate children about food, health, and the environment.
Impact: Three years after its conception, the program successfully eliminated nearly all processed foods from the school district dining halls and introduced fresh and organic foods to the daily menu. There was evidence that greater exposure to the School Lunch Initiative was significantly associated with higher nutrition knowledge scores among fourth graders and seventh graders. Furthermore, elementary school students from the schools with highly developed School Lunch Initiative components clearly expressed a higher preference for fruits and vegetables.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Adults
Goal: The goal of Shape Up & Go! is to encourage physical activity and improvements in nutrition.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / School Environment, Children
Goal: The goal of the program is to decrease school bullying problems by 1) increasing staff awareness and responsiveness, 2) fostering socially responsible beliefs, and 3) teaching social-emotional skills to counter bullying and promote healthy relationships. Thus the program also aims to promote skills (e.g., group joining, conflict resolution) associated with general social competence.
Impact: Students in the intervention schools reported significantly less acceptance of bullying/aggression, perceived greater adult responsiveness, and felt more responsible to intervene with friends who were bullied (bystander responsibility) than students in the control schools.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Teens, Women, Rural
Goal: The goal of the study was to address the special psychosocial needs of adolescents and increase contraception use, equip adolescents with the education needed to make responsible decisions related to family planning matters, and decrease unintended pregnancies.
Impact: After a one-year follow-up, teens were less likely to be pregnant. Intermediate findings at six months showed that teens in the experimental group were more likely to continue using a birth control method and less likely to experience difficulty in dealing with contraceptive-related problems.