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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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Female Condom Skills Training (FEMIT) (San Francisco)

Local

Filed under Local, Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Teens, Adults, Women

Goal: The goals of the program are to Increase use of female condoms and increase the frequency of protected sex.

Impact: FEMIT is successful in increasing female condom use and also in increasing protected sex among women. The FEMIT intervention has the potential to to be an effective supplement to other safe sex education programs currently available at family planning clinics.

Exercise and Work-Oriented Back Pain Management Programs

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Health, Adults

Goal: Expected Beneficial Outcomes: Reduced absenteeism. Other Potential Beneficial Outcomes: Reduced pain.

Flexible Scheduling

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Economy, Adults

Goal: Expected Beneficial Outcomes: Improved health outcomes; Increased job satisfaction; Reduced absenteeism; Increased productivity. Other Potential Beneficial Outcomes: Improved mental health; Improved work-life balance; Increased sleep; Reduced stress; Increased well-being.

Living Wage Laws

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Economy, Adults

Goal: Expected Beneficial Outcomes: Increased earnings; Reduced poverty.

Matched Dollar Incentives for Saving Tax Refunds

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Economy, Adults

Goal: Expected Beneficial Outcomes: Increased asset accumulation. Other Potential Beneficial Outcomes: Increased financial stability.

Paid Sick Leave Laws

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Economy, Adults

Goal: Expected Beneficial Outcomes: Increased access to paid leave; Increased access to health care. Other Potential Beneficial Outcomes: Improved health outcomes; Increased use of parental leave.

Unemployment Insurance (UI)

Local

Filed under Local, Good Idea, Economy, Adults

Goal: Expected Beneficial Outcomes: Increased financial stability; Improved well-being. Other Potential Beneficial Outcomes: Increased food security; Reduced poverty; Reduced suicide; Reduced crime; Improved academic outcomes; Improved health outcomes.

A Text Message-Based Intervention for Weight Loss (San Diego County, CA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults

Goal: To reduce weight in overweight and obese patients using mobile-based text and multimedia messaging.

Impact: At the end of a 4-month period, participants in the text-message based intervention showed greater weight loss than the control group.

Accelerated Benefits (AB) Demonstration (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Disabilities, Adults

Goal: The program's goal was to eliminate the waiting period for access to health care benefits for newly entitled SSDI beneficiaries, and see if this investment has long-term benefits.

Impact: The AB Demonstration project successfully increased the use of health care services and reduced the reported unmet health care needs of participants in the program.

Advancing Diabetes Self Management (Connecticut)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of the Advancing Diabetes Self Management program at the Community Health Center was to improve the health outcomes of people with type 2 diabetes.

Impact: The diabetes self-management intervention showed patient improvements in glycemic control, blood pressure, and LDL cholesterol. The team was able to develop and adapt the program to meet the unique needs of the population to create an effective intervention.

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.
Santa Cruz