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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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Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban

Goal: The goal of Just Food is to build a more just food system in which family farmers make a fair profit for their efforts, and all people have access to affordable, healthy food. Just Food envisions a strong regional food system -- incorporating a diversity of rural farms and a robust urban farming component -- that preserves ecosystems, reduces pollution, promotes social justice, provides education about the environment, and invigorates rural and urban economies.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens

Goal: Given the increased prevalence among youth of obesity and Type II Diabetes Mellitus (DM) in the last 25 years, the goal of Kids N Fitness is to reduce risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome in overweight youth through a family-oriented lifestyle intervention.

Impact: These positive health outcomes indicate that a family-centered lifestyle intervention can improve metabolic health among youth.

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Income, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The mission of La Cocina is to cultivate low-income food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance, and access to market opportunities.

Impact: La Cocina supports dozens of successful food businesses run by low-income women and people from immigrant communities.

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Community & Business Resources, Children, Urban

Goal: Larkin Street Youth Service's mission is "to create a continuum of services that inspires youth to move beyond the streets. We will nurture potential, promote dignity, and support bold steps for all." HIRE UP's mission is: "to provide homeless and runaway youth with an educational foundation and marketable skill set that will greatly increase their chances of progressing into an independent, productive adulthood."

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens

Goal: The program aims to enhance the protective factors of academic performance, attachment and commitment to school, consistent enforcement of rules regarding behavior, and attachment to prosocial role models.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children

Goal: To prevent or delay the onset of underage alcohol and tobacco use by encouraging healthy beliefs and attitudes about abstaining from substance use and by enhancing critical thinking skills to transform students into active media consumers.

Impact: Students who participated in the Media Detective program displayed a greater understanding of media deconstruction skills and persuasive intent. They also had greater self-efficacy to refuse substances compared to students who did not participate in the program.

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: NCDC participants are committed to reducing diesel emissions and finding innovative ways to protect human health and the environment. To fully address the challenges of reducing diesel emissions the NCDC is using a multi-pronged approach:

- Commitment to the successful implementation of the 2007 Highway Engine Rule and the Clean Air Nonroad Diesel Rule.
- Developing new emissions standards for locomotive and marine diesel engines.
- Promoting the reduction of emissions for existing diesel engines through cost-effective and innovative strategies, including use of cleaner fuels, retrofitting and repairing existing fleets, idling reduction among others.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education, Teens

Goal: The mission of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program is to intervene in the lives of high-school dropouts and provide them with the values, life skills, education, and self-discipline necessary to succeed.

Impact: The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program resulted in participants succeeding in several aspects of their lives compared to their control group counterparts. Program participants were more likely to have a GED certificate, more likely to have started college, and more likely to be working.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women

Goal: The program has three primary goals:
1) to improve pregnancy outcomes by promoting health-related behaviors;
2) to improve child health, development and safety by promoting competent care-giving; and
3) to enhance parent life-course development by promoting pregnancy planning, educational achievement, and employment.

The program also has two secondary goals: to enhance families’ material support by providing links with needed health and social services, and to promote supportive relationships among family and friends.

Impact: Evaluations of the program have shown that women who were visited by nurses had significantly better outcomes than those who did not in terms of measures such as maternal health, maternal life-course development, child health and safety, and adolescent measures of delinquency.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults

Goal: The goal of this nurse-led program is to improve secondary prevention among patients with coronary heart disease.