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 Local, Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Women
Goal: The Illinois WISEWOMAN program (IWP) aims to lower heart disease and other chronic disease risk factors through screening and lifestyle classes for women in high-risk populations in service counties throughout Illinois.
Impact: The Illinois WISEWOMAN Program addresses the disproportionate risk of cardiovascular disease among disadvantaged, low-income women. Participation in the program has been shown to improve dietary, physical activity and cardiovascular outcomes.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults
Goal: The goal of this program is to improve colorectal cancer screening rates among older adults.
Impact: Participants in the intervention group had significantly higher colorectal cancer screening attendance, as well as having more positive attitudes about screening and placing a higher priority on screening.
Medical Legal Partnerships: Embedding Civil Legal Aid Services in Care for High-Utilizing Patients (Lancaster, PA)
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Governance, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of the pilot was to assess the impact on health care use of addressing patients’ civil legal problems – the social, financial, or environmental problems that require assistance from lawyers to remedy. The lawyer was embedded in the health care team and present during case management discussions to identify specific civil legal problems and to help the team better understand how to address them. Additionally, this partnership provided civil legal aid services to patients when needed in a community health care system.
Impact: This pilot shows a medical-legal partnership for the super-utilizers of healthcare can lead to efficiencies within the health care system, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes among the most vulnerable patients.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Adults
Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce public and worker exposure to secondhand smoke and to prevent youth initiation of tobacco.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health
Goal: The goal of this program is to provide affordable and easily accessible physician prescribed special formula to babies with special dietary needs due to health problems.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of the program is to teach parents/caregivers effective parenting skills, create a support system for their children, and equip participants with non-violent techniques to encourage a safe environment at home and in the community.
Impact: ACT program has been shown to prevent child maltreatment and promote positive parenting skills, including reducing physical violence towards children, improving knowledge of appropriate discipline, and improving parent methods for teaching children nonviolent social skills.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families
Goal: The goal of Common Sense Parenting is to develop or enhance parenting skills.
Impact: Results from the Common Sense Parenting program indicated improvement in child behavior, parent attitudes, family satisfaction and parent problem-solving ability.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of Healthy Families Palm Beach is to prevent child abuse and neglect.
Impact: The Healthy Families program improves birth outcomes, nurtures child development, prevents child abuse and neglect, improves family functioning, and help parents develop more positive beliefs in their parental roles.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Urban
Goal: The goal of Parent Connext is to support parents in reducing and/or preventing toxic stress in the family and help children develop critical life skills and coping skills. Recent studies have found that up to 50% of health outcomes are attributable to social and economic factors and that lifetime costs associated with child maltreatment are comparable to other costly healthcare conditions such as stroke or type 2 diabetes. Moreover, 4 in 5 physicians report lacking confidence in their ability to meet patients’ social needs, which can impede their ability to provide high quality medical care. As a result, interventions that target parents’ social needs may have important implications for reducing healthcare costs and have the added benefit of enabling physicians to provide high-quality care to their patients.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children
Goal: The goal of PCIT is to improve the behavior of children suffering from conduct disorders by strengthening the parent-child relationship and teaching parenting and discipline skills.