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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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Schools of Hope (Sonoma, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children

Goal: Schools of Hope aims to increase third-grade reading proficiency to 75% by 2015 and 90% by 2020.

Impact: Students tutored through Schools of Hope have an increased reading proficiency compared to other students.

Sonoma County Healthy Retail Project (Sonoma County, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the Healthy Retail Project is to increase access to healthier foods and beverages; decrease the availability of unhealthy products; increase compliance with alcohol, tobacco, and food safety laws; and increase customer loyalty and store profits.

Impact: Over 60% of stores assessed in 2014 met Healthy Retail Project Standards and all participating stores increased their food environment score over baseline.

Steps to a Healthier Yuma County (Yuma County, Arizona)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of Steps to a Healthier Yuma County is to prevent obesity and diabetes in young children.

Summer Bridge (Marin)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families

Goal: The program's goal is to help four- and five-year old children become better prepared for kindergarten.

The Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Action Plan (Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester, SC)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Transportation

Goal: The Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Action Plan is based on three principles:

(1) Children should be able to safely walk and bike to school if they and their parents so choose.

(2) Roadways should equally accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists.

(3) Bicycling and walking should become a routine part of daily activity in the BCD region.

The Seattle-King County Healthy Homes Project (Seattle-King County, Washington)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Families

Goal: The goals of the Seattle-King Healthy Homes project are: to increase knowledge of home environmental health threats and asthma self-management among households with a child who suffers from asthma; help households reduce environmental threats in the household; improve health status and reduce asthma-related medical care utilization.

Urban Mold and Moisture Program (Cuyahoga, OH)

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

Goal: The goal of the Urban Mold and Moisture Program is to reduce environmental mold, moisture, and asthma triggers in homes to improve pediatric respiratory health.

WalkSafe (Florida)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Children, Urban

Goal: The WalkSafe program was developed to improve pediatric pedestrian safety, increase physical activity levels by encouraging children to walk to and from school, and improve the walkability in and around elementary schools.

YouthBuild McLean County (McLean County, IL)

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

Goal: The McLean County program's mission is "to offer young people a once in a lifetime opportunity to build their futures and their communities through education, leadership development, job training, and the rehabilitation and production of affordable housing, while keeping a profound respect for and a commitment to real partnership with youth."

Addressing the Social Determinants of Health through the Alameda County, California, Place Matters Policy Initiative (Alameda County, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Place Matters initiative is to improve the health of participating communities by “addressing social conditions that lead to poor health” through “identifying the complex root causes of health disparities and defining strategies to address them.”

Impact: AC Place Matters has identified 10 best practices that could help other programs address social determinants of health: find and foster strong leadership, dedicate staff resources to the work, engage staff from across the local health department, contribute to building grassroots power, address root causes, partner with community organizations and leaders, partner with government institutions across sectors, work reactively and proactively, build capacity, and use tools that ensure a focus on health equity.

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.