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, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance, Adults, Families
Goal: EARN's mission is to empower low-wage workers to build assets in order to create long-term financial stability.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity
Goal: To reverse the rising tide of obesity and chronic disease among North Carolinians by helping them to eat smart, move more and achieve a healthy weight.
Impact: ESMMWL teaches healthy lifestyle behaviors surround diet and exercise so that participants may incorporate them into their lives in a sustained manner and sustain weight loss.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Families
Goal: EFFEKT seeks to reduce teenage alcohol use by changing the attitudes of their parents. Information is disseminated to the parents at school meetings at the beginning of each semester and through regular communications.
Impact: EFFEKT seeks to reduce teen drinking by changing parental behaviors through structured presentations at their child’s school. Working with parents proved to be an effective way to reduce underage drinking as well as teen delinquency.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The Emergency Room Intervention for Suicidal Adolescent Females focuses on changing the conceptualization of suicidal behavior and expectations for therapy, thereby increasing attendance at outpatient therapy and decreasing future suicide risk.
Impact: The intervention increases the likelihood of follow-up treatment in an outpatient clinic and reduces suicide risk among adolescent females who have visited an emergency room due to a suicide attempt.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The goal of EnhanceFitness is to encourage older adults to engage in regular physical activity to improve their health and well-being.
Impact: EnhanceFitness participants reported a 13% improvement in social function, a 52% improvement in depression, and a 35% improvement in physical functioning. Additionally, participants' healthcare costs were 21% less than those of non-participants after one year.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Public Safety, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural
Goal: In an effort to prepare and engage community residents to take a more participatory role in their communities, Monterey County Health Department (MCHD) developed and has offered since 2014 a leadership and civic engagement program (enLACE) that addresses the social determinants of health, community engagement and their relationship to the health of the community.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Environmental Justice, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Environmental Health Leadership Training is to inform and empower the predominately low income people of three urban communities in Northern Manhattan (Central Harlem, West Harlem, and Washington Heights) to improve their capacity to organize for community environmental health and justice in New York City. The long term goal of these efforts is to help intervene and reduce exposure to environmental toxicants which are adversely affecting the health of disadvantaged, medically underserved, predominantly African American and Latino populations in Northern Manhattan.
Environmental Improvements Brought by the Legal Interventions in the Homes of Poorly Controlled Inner-City Adult Asthmatic Patients (New York City, New York)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban
Goal: The goal is to use a medical-legal collaborative intervention to force landlords into maintaining healthy living conditions for residents with poorly controlled asthma.
Impact: This proof-of concept study exhibits that medical-legal collaboration can significantly impact the control of inner-city asthmatics by improving their domestic environment.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity
Goal: MANNA uses nutrition to improve health for people with serious illnesses who need nourishment to heal. By providing medically tailored meals and nutrition education, we empower people to improve their health and quality of life.
Impact: MANNA members report significant health care cost reductions due to improved health.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children
Goal: Tri 4 Schools encourages kids to participate in swimming, biking, and running as a way to live an active lifestyle and support health and fitness resources in schools.
Impact: Results of Exercise to Achievement are pending completion of the pilot program.