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 / Adolescent Health, Teens
The long-term goals of the program are to arrest the development of teen antisocial behaviors and drug experimentation. Intermediate goals are to improve parents' family management and communication skills.
Parents had improved feelings toward their children and were less likely to react negatively to their children's behavior and less likely to take a "lax" approach to their children after participating in the program. They also showed improvements in the skill areas of tracking and reinforcing behavior, setting expectations and defining problems, and remaining calm in stressful situations. Antisocial behaviors in their children decreased significantly, measures of child adjustment showed improvement, and total problem behavior decreased. Furthermore, the PFS intervention resulted in significantly less use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women, Families
The goal of exercise programs for pregnant women is to improve health and prevent gestational hypertension.
Exercise programs reduce the development of high blood pressure in pregnancy.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women, Urban
The overall goal of the Prenatal Plus Program, combined with the Partners for a Healthy Baby curriculum, is to improve birth outcomes, decrease rates of child abuse and neglect, and strengthen families.
Reduced low birth weight rate through risk reduction during pregnancy.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Urban
The goal of Prime Time Palm Beach County is to improve the quality of school-age afterschool programs through assessment, guidance, and support.
Based on the 2009 study findings, Prime Time's Quality Improvement System resulted in improvements made to afterschool programs which enhanced quality programming and important developmental learning experiences for youth.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults
The goal of Project Achieve is to increase physical activity and cardiorespiratory health among sedentary adults.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
The main goals of the program are to prevent adolescent non-users from experimenting with drugs and to prevent youths who are already experimenting from becoming more regular users.
Project Alert participants were 30% less likely than other students to begin using marijuana and analyses showed that the program significantly dampened pro-drug beliefs about cigarette and marijuana use.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
The goal of the Project DIRECT was to reduce the burden of diabetes and its impact on the African-American community through partnerships with the community in Raleigh, NC.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
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 / Physical Activity
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.
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 / Mental Health & Mental Disorders
The goal of this program is to improve treatment outcomes for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.
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.