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 / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends school and organized child care center-located vaccination programs based on strong evidence of effectiveness in increasing vaccination rates, and in decreasing rates of vaccine-preventable disease and associated morbidity and mortality.
The updated CPSTF recommendation is based on findings from 27 studies in which vaccination programs in schools or child care centers:
-Provided vaccinations on site
-Were administered by a range of providers including school health personnel, health department staff, and other vaccination providers
-Were delivered in a variety of different school and organized child care settings
-Delivered one or more of a range of vaccines recommended for children and adolescents, and
-Included additional components such as education, reduced client out-of-pocket costs, and enhanced access to vaccination services
School- and organized child care center-located vaccination programs may be most useful in improving immunization rates among children and adolescents for new vaccines, and vaccines with new, expanded recommendations (such as the annual immunization for seasonal influenza) where background rates are likely to be very low and improvements in coverage are needed.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to decrease gang-related activity and to increase socially positive interactions for children and adolescents.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens
Impact: Enhanced school-based physical education is recommended to increase physical activity based on strong evidence of effectiveness in increasing the amount of time students spend in moderate- or vigorous- intensity physical activity during PE classes. Enhanced school=based PE resulted in 10 percentage points more PE class time engaged in moderate- or vigorous-intensity physical activity as compared to standard PE classes.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Environmental and Policy Approaches to Increase Physical Activity: Street-Scale Urban Design Land Use Policies (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Children
Filed under Good Idea, Education / School Environment, Children, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program is to build sustainable, local, urban gardens, in order to deliver more reliable and better nutrition to today’s youth and urban communities.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of the Diabetes-Based Science Education for Tribal Schools (DETS) curriculum is to slow or reverse the rising rate of type 2 diabetes in American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) youth through a pedagogy based in a combination of a science-based diabetes/health education curriculum and culturally relevant contexts.
Impact: Overall, the DETS curriculum shows that collaboratively-developed curriculums and education courses can have an effective impact across grade levels with students having significant knowledge gains, and can also serve as a supplement for other science and social science curriculums in schools.
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
Goal: The goal of the "Environmental Scorecard" is to compare the risks of different chemical releases through a combination of raw data on toxic releases and environmental and human health data.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of the Extreme Recruitment program is to use MFCAA's expertise in facilitating adoption and kinship placement to find permanent, successful forever homes for foster children who would otherwise remain in foster care or residential treatment until adulthood.
Impact: In its pilot year, the program successfully placed 22 children in permanent homes.