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 / Family Planning, Women
Goal: The goal of this program is to provide reproductive health care services to women and men in the Denver STD clinic.
Impact: Enrollment in family planning services increased significantly. Among women returning within 12 months, pregnancies were lower among enrolled versus non-enrolled women. Total additional cost was $29.95/visit, and 40.1 minutes of additional staff time.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Families
Goal: To decrease saturated fat consumption and thus reduce coronary heart disease risk factors in young children.
Impact: STRIP's intervention of diet counseling that began at a child's infancy favorably impacted the child's diet through childhood up to ages 8 or 10, but the goal of 2:1 unsaturated-saturated fatty acid ratio in a child's diet was not met for either intervention or control group.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens
Goal: The goal of It's Your Game: Keep It Real is to reduce teen pregnancy, prevent STI transmission, and delay teen sexual activity in middle school students.
Impact: Participants in the It’s Your Game: Keep It Real intervention program were less likely to initiate sex by the ninth grade when compared to the control group.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Educational Attainment, Children
Goal: As a national, primarily residential training program, Job Corps' mission is to attract eligible young adults, teach them the skills they need to become employable and independent, and place them in meaningful jobs or further education.
Impact: Evaluations showed that Job Corps substantially increased the education and training that program participants received. Nearly 90% of the program group engaged in some education or training (both in and out of Job Corps), compared with about 64% of the control group.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: The John Hopkins Community Health Partnership's (J-CHiP) goal is to improve care coordination with Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.
Impact: The John Hopkins Community Health Partnership participants saw lower spending and improved health outcomes in regards to hospital admissions, re-admissions, and emergency department visits.
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban
Goal: The goal of Just Food is to build a more just food system in which family farmers make a fair profit for their efforts, and all people have access to affordable, healthy food. Just Food envisions a strong regional food system -- incorporating a diversity of rural farms and a robust urban farming component -- that preserves ecosystems, reduces pollution, promotes social justice, provides education about the environment, and invigorates rural and urban economies.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Men
Goal: The goal of this dental office based intervention is to reduce smokeless tobacco use and other tobacco use.
Impact: The dental office-based intervention succeeded in increasing the rates of smokeless tobacco cessation among participants.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The overriding treatment goal of Kartini Clinic is to secure lasting remission of eating disorder symptoms, allowing patients and their families to return to their own communities. Using a holistic approach, embracing medical as well as psychological and social interventions, patients are treated with the belief that parents do not cause eating disorders and children do not choose to have them.
Impact: Since 1998, Kartini Clinic has treated more than 2,000 patients and their families for a range of eating disorders.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The objective of this program is to increase life skills such as risk assessment, decision-making and drug resistance, while enhancing anti-drug norms and attitudes.
Impact: Evaluation findings suggest that Keepin' it R.E.A.L. succeeded in decreasing substance use, in reducing negative attitudes/behaviors, and in improving positive attitudes/behaviors.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: Keepin' it REAL aims to reduce adolescent alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco use.