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 Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goal of Project Dulce is to improve the lives of people with diabetes through culturally appropriate, community-based diabetes management, education, and support programs.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce or stop smoking among adolescents.
Impact: At 3-month follow-up, 17% of youths in the treatment conditions reported having quit smoking for at least 30 days, compared with only 8% of those teens in the control condition. These positive effects were also demonstrated when moved from a clinic setting to the classroom, as students in the program condition experienced a greater reduction in weekly smoking and monthly smoking, at 6-and-12-month follow-ups.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Women
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve health outcomes for pregnant and postpartum women with substance abuse problems and their infants.
Impact: Improvement in birth weight and gestational age, and reduction in admittance to neonatal intensive care unit and positive infant toxicology screens.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity
Goal: The goal of the study was to evaluate a community-based food support intervention in the San Francisco Bay Area for people living with HIV and/or type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and potential impact of the intervention on nutritional, mental health, disease management, healthcare utilization, and physical health outcomes.
Impact: Comprehensive, medically appropriate food support is feasible and may improve multiple health outcomes for food-insecure individuals living with chronic health conditions.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to decrease alcohol, tobacco, and drug use and to decrease violence and weapons-carrying among high school students.
Impact: At 2-year follow-up, students in Project TND schools were about half as likely to use tobacco when compared with students in control schools. Students in Project TND schools were about one-fifth as likely to use hard drugs relative to similar students in control schools.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent or reduce tobacco use among children and adolescents.
Impact: One study found that Project the project reduced initiation of cigarette smoking in the two years following the program by 26% when compared to a control group. Students showed increased knowledge of tobacco addiction, related diseases, and media influences and had improved communication, refusal, and coping skills.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve treatment outcomes for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Impact: PE Therapy is considered by expert consensus the treatment of choice for PTSD clients whose prominent symptoms include intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and trauma-related fear and avoidance. One study demonstrated that the treatment group showed significant improvement in PTSD symptoms and depressive symptoms at posttest, and these treatment effects were maintained at 6-month follow-up.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / School Environment, Children
Goal: The goal of this program is to promote social and emotional learning (SEL) and character development, to prevent bullying, and to build the problem-solving abilities and other life skills required for positive relationships throughout students' lives.
Impact: One study found that PATH students performed significantly better than their counterparts on the sociometric tests for aggression and hyperactivity-disruptive behavior according to peer sociometric reports. The PATH classrooms also received better observer ratings for their overall classroom atmosphere.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults
Goal: The PHLAME Study had four primary goals: (1) Increase physical activity to 30 minutes each day; (2) Reduce percent calories from fat to less than 30%; (3) Increase servings of fruits and vegetables to at least 5 per day; and (4) Improve energy balance and normalize body fat.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Urban
Goal: To promote water consumption with an educational and environmental intervention in elementary schools of deprived urban areas to prevent overweight.
Impact: This program shows that environmental and educational, school-based interventions can have effective impact in the prevention of overweight among children in elementary school, even in a population from socially-deprived areas.