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, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Reach for health Community Youth Service program is to reduce risky sexual behaviors among urban Latino and African American youth.
Impact: Long-term impact has been recorded among participants after two years: this includes delayed initiation of intercourse and reduced frequency of intercourse among sexually active adolescents.
Goal: The goal of the program was to recognize and address the diversity of local health disparities by marshaling local community involvement in the place-based Health Equity Zones.
Impact: The framework established through the Health Equity Zones allows for the continued collaboration between governmental public health entities and stakeholders in the community to address health disparities.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: To evaluate the impact of rideshare-based medical transportation on the proportion of Medicaid patients attending scheduled primary care appointments.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: SFUSD aimed to provide students with healthy and appealing food choices and to diminish the dependence of schools and school-related organizations on selling unhealthy foods.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children
Goal: Schools of Hope aims to increase third-grade reading proficiency to 75% by 2015 and 90% by 2020.
Impact: Students tutored through Schools of Hope have an increased reading proficiency compared to other students.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: Both local and state governments face huge challenges in providing senior populations access to public, agency, professional and family caregivers, and community services that allow seniors to remain independent. The complex maze of constantly changing program and service eligibility rules challenge even the most knowledgeable senior service providers. Fragmentation within senior service agencies further results in duplication of services, unnecessary waiting lists, and caregiver and volunteer burnout. This resource attempts to address those problems by providing quick and easy access to a variety of programs.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults
Goal: The mentoring process is designed to help clients work through feelings and emotions, to recognize strengths and coping skills, and to redirect life toward greater meaning and purpose.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Oral Health, Children, Families
Goal: The Smile Programs... the mobile dentists mission is to bring state-of-the-art, dental care to those students in need in the most comfortable and effective way possible.
Impact: Smile Programs provides mobile dental care to children in schools in over a dozen states.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
Goal: This study sought to examine whether Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and benefit levels are associated with reduced subsequent hospital and emergency department utilization in low-income older adults
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Teens, Urban
Goal: The Goals of Project Aware include:
1) Increase capacity of adults to respond to behavioral health issues of adolescents
2) Increase the mental health literacy of youth-interacting adults
3) Link adolescents with behavioral health issues to mental, emotional, and behavioral health assistance and services
4) Increase the number of collaborative partnerships with youth- serving community agencies/programs
5) Conduct outreach and engagement strategies with adolescents and their families/caregivers to increase awareness of and promote positive behavioral health
Impact: Collaboration and partnerships can help drive awareness of mental health issues and training adolescents in Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) can help spread awareness of mental health resources and referrals to professionals.