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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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Congenital Heart Disease Screening Program (Washington, D.C.)

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

Goal: The Congenital Heart Disease Screening Program values early diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) with a goal of making screening for CHD a standard practice for all newborns.

Impact: The physicians at Children's National in the National Heart Institute created a toolkit that nurseries may use to start a screening program to improve detection of serious CHD.

Consumer Product Safety - Recalled Products in Child Care Settings (Idaho)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve the safety of child care centers in Idaho by making sure that recalled products are removed.

Cornell Waste Management Institute Food Scrap Composting Project (New York)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment

Goal: The goal of the Cornell Waste Management Institute project was to increase the capacity to compost the tremendous amount of food scraps produced in New York State.

Delaware Juvenile Drug Court Diversion Program (Delaware)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent further criminal behavior among first-time juvenile misdemeanor drug offenders.

Diabetes Self Management Education (Brinkley, AR)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Diabetes, Rural

Goal: Please define your project/intervention goals:

The goals of this project are:
-to promote individual control of diabetes.
-to help patients become partners with their healthcare providers in the care of their disease.
-to help diabetes patients realize that small continous changes do make big differences.

Direct Instruction

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to maximize learning for all students.

DTaP Drop-off Quality Improvement Project (Wilson County, KS)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Families, Rural

Goal: The goal of this program was to increase full DTaP series vaccination in Wilson County, Kansas.

Impact: Immunization completion rates increased from 70% to 82% after implementation.

EARN (California)

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.

Earn It! Keep It! Save It! (EKS) (San Francisco Bay Area, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of Earn It! Keep It! Save It! is to help low-income families become financially stable.

Elder Farmers' Market Nutrition Program - Florida (Florida)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The goal of the Elder Farmers' Market Nutrition Program is to help low-income elders improve their nutrition through access to fresh produce that they may not otherwise be able to afford.

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.