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.
Addressing the Social Determinants of Health through the Alameda County, California, Place Matters Policy Initiative (Alameda County, CA)
Filed under Good Idea, Health, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Place Matters initiative is to improve the health of participating communities by “addressing social conditions that lead to poor health” through “identifying the complex root causes of health disparities and defining strategies to address them.”
Impact: AC Place Matters has identified 10 best practices that could help other programs address social determinants of health: find and foster strong leadership, dedicate staff resources to the work, engage staff from across the local health department, contribute to building grassroots power, address root causes, partner with community organizations and leaders, partner with government institutions across sectors, work reactively and proactively, build capacity, and use tools that ensure a focus on health equity.
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 Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: To mobilize African American communities, public and community-based organizations and optimize resources to eliminate the disparity in breast and cervical cancer morbidity and mortality between African American and Caucasian women.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Weather & Climate
Goal: The program aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address global warming on college campuses.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Adults, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Assisted Competitive Employment Project is to assist individuals who have been diagnosed with a mental disorder in obtaining and maintaining employment.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends school-based asthma self-management interventions to reduce hospitalizations and emergency room visits among children and adolescents with asthma. Evidence shows interventions are effective when delivered by trained school staff, nurses, and health educators in elementary, middle, and high schools serving diverse populations.
When implemented in schools in low-income or minority communities, interventions are likely to promote health equity.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Family Planning, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goals of this intervention include: increasing information and skills to make sound choices, increasing abstinence, and eliminating or reducing sex risk behaviors.
Impact: Among teens who participated, there was a decrease in sexual activity compared to those who did not participate in the program. Also among participants, there was an increase in sexual intercourse occasions that were condom-protected.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Teens
Goal: To significantly reduce depressive symptoms and to reduce the rates of future major depressive disorder onset among adolescents.
Impact: The Blues Program has been shown to decrease depressive symptoms, decrease rates of major depression onset, decrease rates of substance use, and increase factors that are protective against depression.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Teens, Women
Goal: The Body Project is a dissonance intervention designed to help women in high school and college resist societal and cultural pressures to conform to an idealized notion of what it means to be 'thin' and to help increase body acceptance. A reduction in thin-ideal internalization should result in reduced use of unhealthy weight-control behaviors, decreased eating disorder symptoms, and overall increase in mood and well-being.
Impact: The Body Project program has yielded numerous significant benefits at posttest and 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years after program implementation. These include significant reductions in body dissatisfaction, bulimic symptoms and psychosocial impairment compared to control group participants.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: The goal of Project Access is to improve access to specialty health care in Buncombe County.