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

Open Airways for Schools (OAS) (Chicago, IL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal of the Open Airways for Schools intervention is to improve asthma control among children in Latino communities in Chicago.

Rural medical-legal partnership and advocacy: a three-year follow-up study. (southern Illinois)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy, Rural

Goal: Medical-legal partnerships perform advocacy services for vulnerable and under-served populations. These populations are typically burdened disproportionately by legal and medical problems. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness and sustainability of a rural medical-legal partnership (MLP).

Impact: The rural medical-legal partnership continued to show social and financial impacts, such as health care recovery dollars (319% return on investment between 2007 and 2009), Social Security benefits, family law services, and end-of-life guidance.

Safe Streets (Baltimore, MD)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Teens, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: To combat the epidemic of violence among Baltimore’s youth and support traditional public safety strategies using a combination of public health and human service models to reduce violence.

Impact: It was estimated that the program was associated with 5.4 fewer homicide incidents and 34.6 fewer nonfatal shooting incidents during 112 cumulative months of intervention post observations.

Sunday Parkways (Chicago)

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

Goal: To bring a culture of physical activity to the Latino and African-American communities in Chicago in order to decrease health problems related to inactivity.

The Aban Aya Youth Project (AAYP) (Chicago)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Men, Urban

Goal: The goal of this intervention is to reduce high-risk behavior among African American youth as measured by student self-reports of violence, provocative behavior, school delinquency, substance use, and sexual behaviors (intercourse and condom use).

Impact: AAYP reduced rates of risky behaviors among male African American youth.

The Crest Cavity-Free Zone Program (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children

Goal: The goal of the Crest Cavity-Free Zone Program is to improve the oral health of underprivileged children.

Impact: The educational program was effective in promoting improved oral health in these children over a four-week period.

The Living Room of the Community Health Center of LaGrange (LaGrange, IL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Urban

Goal: To reduce the number of individuals with mental illness who use the ER, to help individuals achieve long-term recovery, and to develop a community peer-based support network.

Impact: The Living Room is a comfortable, non-clinical space that offers an alternative to hospital emergency rooms. The program in LaGrange, Illinois hopes to decrease unnecessary hospitalizations.

YIELD the Power (Chicago, IL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Disabilities, Children

Goal: The purpose of Access Living's Y.I.E.L.D. (Youth for Integration through Education, Leadership and Discovery) the Power Project was to increase the participation of youth with disabilities in mainstream workforce development activities through a variety of youth-led systems change initiatives. Specific goals included the following:

-Train 100 youth with disabilities to become leaders in the disability community and other sectors of their communities

-Witness and document systems change in at least 10 WIA (Workforce Investment Act)-assisted youth programs in Chicago through trainings and focused one-on-one technical assistance

-Provide paid and unpaid work experiences for youth with disabilities.

826 National (Chapters in CA, NY, IL, WA, MI, MA, DC)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The mission of 826 National is to help children ages 6-18 develop their writing skills, and to help teachers get their students excited about writing. The mission is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.

All Kids (Illinois)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to make affordable health care a reality for hundreds of thousands of families across the state.

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.