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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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Supporting At-Risk Youth with Summer High School Preparatory Programs (Cherokee-Graham-Swain Counties, NC)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal is to help prepare at-risk youth to develop their academic skills and self-confidence for as they transition from middle school to high school.

The Mercury Challenge (USA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants

Goal: The goal of the Mercury Challenge is to eliminate mercury from industrial sites.

Communities and Schools for Career Success (CS2) (Petaluma, CA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

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

Goal: The Communities and Schools for Career Success (CS2) partnership's goal is to increase academic achievement, civic engagement, and career awareness by reshaping the relationships between schools and the community.

The Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

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

Goal: To reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease by reducing risk factors among children.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Breast and Cervical Cancer Coalition (Birmingham, AL)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Cancer, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce disparities in breast and cervical cancer screening and outcomes between African American and white women through the use of community advisors.

Internet-Based Case Management for Secondary Prevention of Heart Disease (Virginia)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The goal of this program is to provide risk factor management training and services to individuals with cardiovascular disease.

Impact: Intervention participants had significantly fewer cardiovascular events than patients who received usual care (4.1% vs. 15.7%, p = 0.053). Reduced hospitalization and emergency room expenses resulted in a gross cost savings of $1,418 per patient.

Low Literacy Intervention to Promote Discussion of Prostate Cancer (Atlanta, GA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Men

Goal: To educate men over the age of 45 about prostate cancer and to increase prostate cancer screening in order to reduce the incidence of prostate cancer.

Oral Health Care Education for Nursing Home Caregivers (UK)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Oral Health, Older Adults

Goal: The goal of this educational program was to improve the quality of oral health care nursing home residents received from their caregivers.

Impact: This study shows that oral health care education can improve caregivers' knowledge, attitudes and oral health care delivery for elderly clients.

A Model For Increasing Availability Of Community-Based Cancer Trials (Maryland)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to increase the availability of cancer trials and increase patient enrollment in cancer trials in an underserved rural community in Maryland.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Cancer Prevention & Control, Client-Oriented Screening Interventions: Group Education (USA)

CDC

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Cancer, Adults, Women

Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) finds insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of group education in increasing screening for cervical cancer based on the small number of studies with methodologic limitations and inconsistent findings.

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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