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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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California Healthy Start (California)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families

Goal: California Healthy Start's mission is to provide comprehensive services that support the wide variety of needs of children and further student learning.

California Main Street (California)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Economic Climate

Goal: 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.

PACE+: Counseling Adolescents for Exercise and Nutrition (California)

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

Goal: The goal of PACE+ for adolescents is to: decrease total dietary fat consumption; increase fruits & vegetable consumption; increase participation in moderate and vigorous physical activity; decrease sedentary habits among adolescents aged 11-15.

Students for Nutrition and Exercise (SNaX)

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

Goal: The goal of Students for Nutrition and Exercise is to encourage healthy eating and daily physical activity in middle school students.

Impact: The SNaX program shows that programs which train peer advocates to encourage healthy eating and daily physical activity in students can serve to benefit those trained as peer advocates after the intervention.

The California Tobacco Control Program (California)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children, Adults

Goal: The Mission of California's Tobacco Control Section (TCS) is to improve the health of all Californians by reducing illness and premature death attributable to the use of tobacco products.

Addressing the Social Determinants of Health through the Alameda County, California, Place Matters Policy Initiative (Alameda County, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Place Matters initiative is to improve the health of participating communities by “addressing social conditions that lead to poor health” through “identifying the complex root causes of health disparities and defining strategies to address them.”

Impact: AC Place Matters has identified 10 best practices that could help other programs address social determinants of health: find and foster strong leadership, dedicate staff resources to the work, engage staff from across the local health department, contribute to building grassroots power, address root causes, partner with community organizations and leaders, partner with government institutions across sectors, work reactively and proactively, build capacity, and use tools that ensure a focus on health equity.

Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE) (Ohio)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Literacy

Goal: The goal of this program is to provide literacy skills and other basic skills to the most educationally and economically disadvantaged individuals in the state.

Alcohol and Other Drug Death Review (Humboldt County, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use

Goal: The goal of this program is to involve community partners in reviewing individual deaths, generating recommendations for improved community collaboration, and initiating new practices.

California Farm to School Program (California)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children

Goal: The goal of California Farm to School is to teach students about the path that food takes from the farm to their forks while instilling healthy eating habits.

California Smoker’s Hotline (California)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Adults, Families

Goal: The Hotline’s goal is to help individuals and families quite smoking.

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.