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 Good Idea, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Adults, Urban
Goal: The mission of At The Crossroads is to reach out to homeless youth and young adults at their point of need, and provide them with services and programs that will empower them and improve their lives.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Prevention & Safety, Children, Families
Goal: The goal of Baby, Be Safe is to increase the use of child injury prevention measures.
Impact: Participants who received tailored educational materials reported greater adoption of home and car safety behaviors than those receiving generic information. This study offers promising findings to help prevent injuries to young children.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use
Goal: The goal of Behavioral Couples Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse is to improve success rates for treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse by involving intimate partners in the treatment process.
Impact: Numerous studies of the program have shown positive outcomes in five areas: substance abuse, quality of relationship with partner, treatment compliance, intimate partner violence, and children's psychosocial functioning. BCT clients also reported more relationship satisfaction than non-participants.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Children, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The objectives of Bienestar are to decrease dietary saturated fat intake, increase dietary fiber intake, and increase physical activity among low-income Mexican-American elementary and middle school children.
Impact: The Bienestar Health Program statistically significantly increases fitness scores and dietary fiber intakes levels among low-income, Mexican-American fourth-graders. A second randomized control trial conducted from 6th to 8th grade showed reductions in various indexes of adiposity.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: To decrease consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in Boston public schools.
Impact: Data from Boston youth indicated that policy changes restricting the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages in schools can cause significant reductions in consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and are promising strategies to reduce adolescents’ intake of unnecessary calories.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve the educational performance of economically disadvantaged adolescents.
Impact: After 30 months, program youths reported significantly greater enjoyment and engagement in reading, verbal skills, writing, and tutoring. They also had better overall averages in reading, spelling, history, science, social studies, and school attendance compared with comparison and control youths.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / School Environment, Children
Goal: The goal of the Caring School Community program is to build classroom and school communities in order to support learning, academic success, positive relationships and character formation.
Impact: After 3 years, CSC students, relative to their comparison school counterparts, showed a greater sense of the school as a caring community, more fondness for school, stronger academic motivation, more frequent reading of books outside of school, a higher sense of efficacy, stronger commitment to democratic values, better conflict-resolution skills, more concern for others, more frequent altruistic behavior, and less use of alcohol.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Urban
Goal: The Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program's goal is to provide comprehensive youth development services and reduce teen pregnancy among economically disadvantaged teenagers.
Impact: Pregnancy prevention programs can work successfully among females when started early in adolescence and when male counterparts are also educated appropriately on condom-use and delayed sexual actively onset.
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Adolescent Health: Person-to-Person Interventions to Improve Caregivers' Parenting Skills (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Families
Goal: To modify adolescents' risk and protective behaviors by improving their caregivers' parenting skills based on sufficient evidence of effectiveness in reducing adolescent risk behaviors.
Impact: Although the estimated effects varied substantially and were not statistically significant, risk behaviors decreased and youth participants reported increased refusal skills and self efficacy for avoiding risky behaviors in the future.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Wellness & Lifestyle, Adults
Impact: There is strong evidence that the use of assessments of health risks with feedback, combined with health education programs, improves outcomes regarding tobacco use, dietary fat intake, blood pressure, cholesterol, and number of days lost due to illness or disability.