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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.

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Young Parents Program (Boston, MA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Young Parents Program is to help inner city teenage parents learn positive attitudes, behaviors, and parenting skills so that their children experience healthy growth and development a during their early and critical years.

Youth Speaks (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Literacy, Teens

Goal: Youth Speaks aims to empower youth and effect change through written and oral literacy.

Alcohol Misuse Prevention Study (Southeast Michigan)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce alcohol misuse among adolescents.

Impact: Middle school students who receive the curriculum have increased knowledge about alcohol misuse when compared to a control group. Students who received programming in the 10th grade had significantly increased alcohol misuse prevention knowledge, decreased alcohol misuse, and increased refusal skills. During their first year of driving, students who received the curriculum were involved in fewer serious traffic or drug offenses than students in the control group.

Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives (ATHENA) (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens

Goal: The mission of the ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives) program is to promote healthy sports nutrition and discourage the use of body-enhancing substances among middle and high school female athletes.

Impact: Participation in the ATHENA program results in significant reductions in the use of performance-enhancing substances, recreational drugs, diet pills, tobacco, and alcohol among female teen athletes. Healthier eating and other health behaviors, and body image perceptions were also improved.

Behavioral Couples Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (BCT)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use

Goal: The goal of Behavioral Couples Therapy for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse is to improve success rates for treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse by involving intimate partners in the treatment process.

Impact: Numerous studies of the program have shown positive outcomes in five areas: substance abuse, quality of relationship with partner, treatment compliance, intimate partner violence, and children's psychosocial functioning. BCT clients also reported more relationship satisfaction than non-participants.

Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS) (Seattle, WA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Teens

Goal: The aims of the BASICS program are 1) to reduce alcohol consumption and its adverse consequences, 2) to promote healthier choices among young adults, and 3) to provide important information and coping skills for risk reduction.

Impact: Students who received a brief individual preventive intervention had significantly greater reductions in negative consequences that persisted over a 4-year period than their control-group counterparts. For those individuals receiving the brief intervention, dependence symptoms were more likely to decrease and less likely to increase.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Dram Shop Liability (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Adults

Impact: Dram shop liability laws, or when the owner of an establishment that sells alcohol is responsible for the harmful actions of a customer after he or she buys a drink, leaves the location, and then causes harm, have the ability to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harms.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Increasing Alcohol Taxes (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Adults

Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) has found that increasing the unit price of alcohol by raising taxes can help prevent excessive alcohol consumption and related harms.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Maintaining Limits on Days of Sale (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Adults

Impact: In order to prevent excessive alcoholism and related harms, the Community Preventive Services Task Force recommends supporting existing limits on days in which alcoholic beverages may be sold.

CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Maintaining Limits on Hours of Sale (USA)

CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Adults

Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force recommends limiting access to alcohol by regulating the hours it can be sold as they found that increasing the hours available for alcohol sale can result in an increase in alcohol consumption and alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.

A Good Idea meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. The program evaluation is limited to descriptive measure(s) of success/accomplishment (i.e., program participation rates, number of services/education sessions/radio messages provided). Note: oftentimes, the program has been newly implemented and a program evaluation has not yet been conducted. Programs that have not yet been evaluated, but which show promise in improving health or quality of life, are classified as Good Ideas until an evaluation is conducted.

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.