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 / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of the CLEAR intervention is to empower HIV-positive youth to reduce risk behaviors and improve mental and physical health.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Civic Engagement, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: WomanSpirit aims to foster grassroots women's leadership in the St. Louis area by claiming safe community space for women's mutual support and training, gaining access to government funds for women's economic development, and achieving positions in local, regional and national decision-making bodies.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The goal of this program is to use cognitive behavioral therapy to treat depression in older adults.
Impact: Research has shown that behavioral cognitive therapy helped patients reduce their depression symptoms, and maintained this improvement at 1-year follow-up more effectively than other types of therapy. At 6-month follow-up, clients who completed CBT were less likely to meet criteria for diagnoses of depression than clients who completed treatment as usual.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Families
Goal: The Healthy Neighborhoods program seeks to reduce housing related illness and injury through prevention and education.
Impact: In the past five years, the HNP visited 31,000 homes with 85,000 residents, and provided the asthma intervention to 11,000 adults and children with asthma. The assessments created a valuable data set about the health effects of housing hazards.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The mission of Communities Putting Prevention to Work: Cherokee Nation is to promote healthy eating, physical activity and increase tobacco cessation throughout the tribe’s jurisdictional boundaries.
Impact: Communities Putting Prevention to Work: Cherokee Nation works to prevent obesity and tobacco use through various programs including chronic disease screenings, farm-to-school programs, and smoking cessation classes available to all Cherokees in the service area.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: This initiative strives to alleviate nursing shortages in underserved areas.
Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) (formerly the Coronary Health Improvement Project) (Rockford, IL)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults
Goal: The goal of the CHIP lifestyle intervention is to lower blood cholesterol, hypertension, and blood sugar levels and reduce excess weight.
Impact: CHIP has over 55,000 graduates worldwide and sustains adherence to the program guidelines through an active "ClubCHIP" member support organization.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / School Environment, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve classroom management in order to provide a better learning environment that fosters academic success.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: CLOCC's mission is to confront the childhood obesity epidemic by promoting healthy and active lifestyles for children throughout the Chicago metropolitan area.
Impact: The Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children brings together researchers, public health advocates and practitioners, and the children, families, and communities of Chicagoland to prevent childhood obesity.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens
Goal: The goal of cooperative learning is to establish positive interdependence among students. When positive interdependence is established in group learning situations, the quality of peer interaction improves. Instead of competing with or ignoring one another, students are more likely to promote the success of one another through mutual assistance, emotional support, and the sharing of ideas or resources. These positive social interactions, in turn, encourage greater social acceptance and the development of positive relationships among students and, in educational contexts, promote greater academic motivation and achievement (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005). In fact, research on social interaction suggests that gains in social skills alone are insufficient to reduce social problems among students and encourage more positive peer relations. Only positive interdependence, and the subsequent positive social interactions that arise from it, can motivate youth to re-evaluate previous conclusions regarding the social desirability of others (Bierman, 2004).
Impact: Cooperative learning can have positive effects on adolescent bullying, alcohol use, and tobacco use.