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, Community / Civic Engagement
Community associations can increase resident involvement by treating all residents as stakeholders, developing and conducting community harmony and spirit-enhancing programs, and including residents in the initial stages of program development.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Teens
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.
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.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality
The goal of Project Access is to improve access to specialty health care in Buncombe County.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Economic Climate
The purpose of California Main Street is to educate and provide assistance to California communities about how they can revitalize their downtowns or core commercial districts using the self-help Main Street Four-Point Approach. Through this education on how traditional downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts can become and remain vital economic, social, and cultural centers, the community's development leads to livable and sustainable practices that ultimately improve its quality of life.
Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Urban
The mission of this project is to improve the safety and living conditions for residents of Boyle Heights and to empower those residents to make positive changes in their communitites and their lives.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Nutrition & Healthy Eating, Rural
CVAN is the Kansas conduit for tons of healthy produce from the Catholic Charities Mary Martha Organization--the steward of excess highly perishable high quality foods from a huge Walmart Distribution Center in Oklahoma. As food supplies allow, CVAN distributes to the 100 square mile school district and to share with a networked family of pantries and volunteer organizations in five Kansas counties and South Coffeyville, OK. As needed, CVAN has recruited distribution volunteers in covering communities within this economically depressed region. The network family was built upon the CVAN’s supply of fresh produce, but is now blessing this area with distribution of CARES foods during the COVID crisis. Its volunteers are food warriors--winning in the fight against rural hunger.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens, Urban
The goal of this program is to enhance the life options of disadvantaged, urban high school students.
Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
CARE's goal is to increase the amount of recycling and reuse of post-consumer carpet, and reduce the amount of carpet going to landfills.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Teens, Adults, Families
The goal of the Hawaii Catch-A-Roach Project is to reduce preventable asthma complications and emergency room visits and hospitalizations by increasing awareness of the link between cockroaches and asthma and reducing exposure to cockroaches.
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Asthma Control: Home-Based Multi-Trigger, Multicomponent Environmental Interventions (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Teens
To improve overall quality of life and productivity for children and adolescents that suffer from asthma.
Home-based multi-trigger, multi-component interventions with a combination of minor or moderate environmental remediation with an education component provide good value based on improvement in symptoms free days.