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, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Urban
The goal of this project is to provide compost outreach and education to New York City residents and businesses.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children
Launched in the fall of 2002, the plan, Moving Our Children Toward a Healthy Weight: Finding the Will and the Way, calls for a multilevel approach to reducing the number of overweight and obese children. It focuses not only on behavioral and interpersonal change, but also on the organizational, community, and societal changes necessary to support healthy eating habits and increased physical activity for children, teens, and their families.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Families
The goals of the Seattle-King Healthy Homes project are: to increase knowledge of home environmental health threats and asthma self-management among households with a child who suffers from asthma; help households reduce environmental threats in the household; improve health status and reduce asthma-related medical care utilization.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases
-Assessment of infants’ and children’s immunization status
-On-site vaccinations or referral to vaccination providers
-Additional interventions such as client reminder and recall systems, manual tracking and outreach efforts, or adoption of monthly voucher pickup schedules that require more WIC visits when vaccinations are not up-to-date
Vaccination services may be provided in WIC clinics, or through collocation and coordination of WIC programs with other healthcare services.
The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends vaccination programs in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) settings—when used with additional components--to increase vaccination rates among children.
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
The goal of this program is to reduce waste and encourage recycling at Vandenberg AFB.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Community & Business Resources, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
The mission of the Pasadena Community Gardens Conservancy is to improve family health in urban food desert neighborhoods through grants for community gardens and nutrition education.
Pasadena Community Gardens Conservancy partnered with the City of Pasadena to establish the Villa-Parke Community Center, where community members can learn about gardening, cooking, nutrition.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural
The goal of the WATCH project is to improve diet and colorectal cancer screening rates among African American adults.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Adults
The goal of WRAP is to teach participants recovery and self-management skills and strategies.
The WRAP program shows that the efficacy and effectiveness of peer-led self-management interventions has the potential to enhance self-determination and promote recovery for people with psychiatric disabilities.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Families, Urban
Westside Infant-Family Network’s mission is to ensure that families with prenatal through three-year-olds receive the mental health care and community resources they need to strengthen their families and achieve healthy parent-child relationships.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Adults, Women, Men, Families, Urban
Research supports the benefits of using the strategies employed by With All Families: Parents (i.e., screening, resource navigation, and parent coaching) to improve family welfare by addressing underlying risk factors related to poverty and access to resources. For example, programs designed to provide screening and resource navigation support are associated with reduced social needs, improved child health and decreased child hospitalization visits. In light of evidence suggesting that social factors may in fact play a larger role in determining one’s health than medical care, programs that target these social factors, such as With All Families: Parents, are becoming increasingly important.
References
Garg, A., Toy, S., Tripodis, Y., Silverstein, M., & Freeman, E. (2015). Addressing social determinants of health at well child care visits: a cluster RCT. Pediatrics, 135(2), e296-e304.
Gottlieb, L. M., Hessler, D., Long, D., Laves, E., Burns, A. R., Amaya, A., ... & Adler, N. E. (2016). Effects of social needs screening and in-person service navigation on child health: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA pediatrics, 170(11), e162521-e162521.
Pantell, M. S., Hessler, D., Long, D., Alqassari, M., Schudel, C., Laves, E., ... & Gottlieb, L. M. (2020). Effects of in-person navigation to address family social needs on child health care utilization: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA network open, 3(6), e206445-e206445.
Braveman, P., & Gottlieb, L. (2014). The social determinants of health: it's time to consider the causes of the causes. Public health reports, 129(1_suppl2), 19-31.