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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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Center for Employment Opportunities (New York, NY)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment

Goal: The goal of this program is to help men and women who are returning home from prison to regain the skills and confidence needed for a successful transition to a stable, productive life.

Common Ground (California)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Housing & Homes, Adults, Families, Urban

Goal: Common Ground seeks to help homeless individuals and families develop stability and independence by providing housing and support services.

Comprehensive Homeless Access to Nontraditional Clinical Experiences (CHANCE) (Syracuse, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of CHANCE is to facilitate a connection between mental health services and homeless individuals.

Fulmer SPICES: An Overall Assessment Tool for Older Adults (New York, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The goal of this tool is to improve patient care for older adults by helping nurses to evaluate common conditions.

Gilda's Club (New York, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Cancer

Goal: The mission of Gilda's Club is to provide places where men, women, and children with cancer and their families and friends join with others to build social and emotional support as a supplement to medical care.

Green Guerillas (New York City, NY)

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

Goal: Green Guerillas' goal is to help gardeners cultivate and manage community gardens that thrive as parks, urban farms, and outdoor community centers.

GreenThumb (New York, NY)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to foster civic participation and encourage neighborhood revitalization while preserving open space. Community gardens provide green space and easily accessible recreational opportunities in the areas that need them most.

Hot Bread Kitchen (New York City, NY)

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

Goal: Hot Bread Kitchen's mission is to increase economic security for foreign-born, low-income women and men by helping them gain access to the thriving specialty food industry.

Impact: Hot Bread Kitchen trains low-income, immigrant men and women for successful professional baking careers.

Increasing Screening Colonoscopy in an Urban Public Hospital (New York, NY)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to increase access to colorectal cancer screening by improving the efficiency in health care clinics.

Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults (Jamaica, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults mission is "a total community working together to provide services to, and develop skills in, older adults in order to promote independence and enhance their quality of life."

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.