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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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Common Ground (California)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: Common Ground seeks to help homeless individuals and families develop stability and independence by providing housing and support services.

Communicable Disease Prevention/Public Health Preparedness: HealthSentry (Kansas City, MO)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: The goal of HealthSentry is to meet the challenge of linking public health organizations to reliable clinical data without burdensome manual data collection and reporting.more timely and accurate reporting.

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 Action Model (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The original goal of the Community Action Model has been to improve the health and environment of a community by reducing tobacco influences while building community capacity. It can be applied to a variety of health and welfare issues and has been used successfully in many communities with multiple topics of intervention.

Impact: The Community Action Model has resulted in new tobacco control policies within San Francisco, many of which serve as models for other communities.

Community Asthma Prevention Program (Philadelphia)

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

Goal: The goal of the Community Asthma Prevention Program is to provide a community-driven asthma management program in order to increase asthma awareness and knowledge, and to increase the quality of life of those living with asthma.

Community Corrections Program (Tazewell, Va.)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Teens, Adults, Rural

Goal: The goal of the Community Corretions Program is to provide an alternative to incarceration by providing counseling to the offender and organizing integration back into the community through community service activities.

Community Frameworks (Washington)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Families

Goal: Community Frameworks' mission is to support and develop affordable housing so that individuals, families, and neighborhoods can build communities.

Community Gardens Program (Trenton, NJ)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Urban

Goal: Isles, Inc., is a nationally recognized nonprofit community development and environmental organization with the mission to foster more self-reliant families in healthy, sustainable communities.

Community Influenza Collaborative: Prevention and Surveillance (Cass County, ND)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: The initial goal of this group was to initiate communication between the private and public health care sectors in regards to influenza prevention planning. Once that communication was established and barriers were identified and addressed, the group identified the following goals: develop a common message for the general public regarding influenza vaccination, educate all health care providers regarding CDC influenza vaccination guidelines and encourage them to adhere to these guidelines, establish consistency in timing for vaccination clinics throughout the community and consistency in vaccination costs, and develop a local influenza surveillance system.

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.

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