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 Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
The goals of this promising practice were to identify the transportation-disadvantaged population that lacks nonemergency medical care because of low access to transportation; determine the medical conditions that this population experiences and describe other characteristics of these individuals, including geography; estimate the cost of providing the transportation necessary for this population to obtain medical transportation according to various transportation service needs and trip modes; estimate the healthcare costs and benefits that would result if these individuals obtained transportation to non-emergency medical care for key healthcare conditions prevalent for this population; and compare the relative costs (from transportation and routine healthcare) and benefits (such as improved quality of life and better managed care, leading to less emergency care) to determine the cost-effectiveness of providing transportation for selected conditions.
These results show that adding relatively small transportation costs do not make a disease-specific, otherwise cost-effective environment non-cost-effective. Providing increased access to non-emergency medical care does improve quality of life and saves money per patient.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
The objective of this article is to describe Project Restoration's approach to cross-sector collaboration with a shared population of high utilizing community members, describe the process and outcomes of the collaboration, provide strategies to mitigate challenges that arise during collaboration and offer insights to inform similar initiatives in communities nationwide.
Hospitals across the region are assessing ways to establish a centralized infrastructure to collaboratively address the complexities of individual cases, as well as a regional council to explore process improvements to enhance the lives of vulnerable populations.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Children, Teens, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Making Connections for Mental Health and Wellbeing Among Men and Boys is a national initiative to transform community conditions that influence mental wellbeing. The Prevention Institute works with 13 communities across the U.S. to shift policies, practices, and norms to create greater opportunities for health and resilience, with particular focus on veterans and men and boys of color.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Families
The goal of the Fit Community initiative is to recognize communities that are making better quality of life a real priority by granting them awards to help in the implementation of community interventions targeting physical activity and healthy eating.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health
The initiative’s goal is to reduce infant sleep-related deaths by promoting safe sleep environments and SIDS risk reduction techniques among healthcare professionals, childcare providers, and all individuals responsible for caring for infants.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Cancer, Adults, Rural
To get as many age appropriate people screened as possible in the community and to raise awareness about the life-saving practice of colorectal screening.
Many cancers have been found and many have been prevented. The population has expressed gratitude for this program and the partners (such as the pharmacies and the hospital lab) are proud to be part of it.
Integrating Community Service with Higher Education Student Government Programming (Sonoma County, CA)
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Civic Engagement, Teens
The goal is to integrate community service programs at colleges and universities into the programming objectives of student government organizations in order to achieve greater student involvement and more stable funding.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Adults
The goal of this program is to reduce public and worker exposure to secondhand smoke and to prevent youth initiation of tobacco.
Filed under Good Idea, Education / Student Performance K-12, Teens
To reduce truancy in high school.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
The goal of this provider intervention is to increase provider recommendation and patient adherence to colorectal cancer screening in publicly-funded health centers.