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 Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of Club HERO is encourage feelings of support at home and school and increase knowledge about the harmful effects of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs to prevent youths' drug use.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The goal of this program is to use cognitive behavioral therapy to treat depression in older adults.
Impact: Research has shown that behavioral cognitive therapy helped patients reduce their depression symptoms, and maintained this improvement at 1-year follow-up more effectively than other types of therapy. At 6-month follow-up, clients who completed CBT were less likely to meet criteria for diagnoses of depression than clients who completed treatment as usual.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Families
Goal: The Healthy Neighborhoods program seeks to reduce housing related illness and injury through prevention and education.
Impact: In the past five years, the HNP visited 31,000 homes with 85,000 residents, and provided the asthma intervention to 11,000 adults and children with asthma. The assessments created a valuable data set about the health effects of housing hazards.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Women
Goal: The goal of Commit to Quit is to help female smokers quit smoking through group programming and exercise.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families
Goal: The goal of Common Sense Parenting is to develop or enhance parenting skills.
Impact: Results from the Common Sense Parenting program indicated improvement in child behavior, parent attitudes, family satisfaction and parent problem-solving ability.
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.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens, Families
Goal: The goal of Communities That Care is to mobilize communities to prevent future substance abuse by reducing risk factors for children between the ages of 10 and 14.
Impact: Communities That Care reduces initiation of substance abuse behaviors in youth aged 10-14.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Adults, Older Adults, Urban
Goal: CAPABLE is a 5-month structured home visit program delivered by an occupational therapist (OT), a registered nurse (RN), and a handyman to improve daily function in older adults and to lower the monthly average Medicaid expenditure and likelihood of costly healthcare services.
Impact: This study demonstrates that home visit programs can improve the daily quality of life in aging adults. Additionally, they can lead to a reduction in Medicaid expenditures via lower inpatient costs and lower long-term care costs.
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.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Oral Health, Families
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve the health of all its community members, while providing the same quality of service paid for by privately insured patients.