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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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Medical Legal Partnerships: Embedding Civil Legal Aid Services in Care for High-Utilizing Patients (Lancaster, PA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Governance, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the pilot was to assess the impact on health care use of addressing patients’ civil legal problems – the social, financial, or environmental problems that require assistance from lawyers to remedy. The lawyer was embedded in the health care team and present during case management discussions to identify specific civil legal problems and to help the team better understand how to address them. Additionally, this partnership provided civil legal aid services to patients when needed in a community health care system.

Impact: This pilot shows a medical-legal partnership for the super-utilizers of healthcare can lead to efficiencies within the health care system, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes among the most vulnerable patients.

Medical-Legal Partnership (Kansas City Metropolitan Area)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Prevention & Safety, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the medical-legal partnership is to improve health outcomes through quality legal services.

Impact: The Medical-Legal Partnership provides legal assistance to patients on issues that directly or indirectly affect health.

Medical-Legal Partnerships: Investing in Social Services as a Core Strategy for Healthcare (New York City)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Teens, Adults, Urban

Goal: New York City LegalHealth is a fruitful partnership that operates in 11 clinics of the city's public hospitals. One example is by supporting individuals in tenant-landlord disputes.

Impact: With an average of $225 per case, LegalHealth was able to effectively demand fixes in asthma patients' living conditions. This impact directly resulted in a 90% drop in emergency room visits and hospital admissions for this asthma patient group.

Nurturing Parenting Program (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families

Goal: The long-term goals of this program are to decrease the rate of recidivism in families receiving social services, lower the rate of multiparent teenage pregnancies, reduce the rate of juvenile delinquency and alcohol abuse, and stop the intergenerational cycle of child abuse by teaching positive parenting behaviors.

Partnering with a Bakery to Provide Breakfast to Low-Income Schools (United Kingdom)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of this partnership is to provide a healthy breakfast to low-income students to help them perform better in school.

The Incredible Years: Palm Beach County (Palm Beach County, FL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families

Goal: The program aims to promote social, emotional, and academic competence and to prevent children from developing conduct problems.

Impact: The Incredible Years series has been shown to increase positive parenting practices and family communication while reducing children's conduct problems.

Think...Think Again Child Passenger Restraint Program (Canada)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Public Safety

Goal: The goal of the program was to improve child passenger safety.

Vera Casey Teen Parenting Program (Berkeley)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Adolescent Health

Goal: The goal of the Vera Casey Teen Parenting Program is to promote healthy teen parents and children by providing and coordinating comprehensive services supporting a healthy pregnancy, healthy children, and the well-being of the whole family.

West Harlem Waterfront Park Project (New York)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Environmental Justice, Children, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goals of the West Harlem Waterfront Park Program are to bridge green spaces along the Hudson River and enhance waterfront access, economic development, and regional transportation alternatives in the West Harlem community.

Young Parents Program (Boston, MA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Young Parents Program is to help inner city teenage parents learn positive attitudes, behaviors, and parenting skills so that their children experience healthy growth and development a during their early and critical years.

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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