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.
Public Health Surveillance and Communications Using Regional Emergency Medicine Internet (REMI) (Milwaukee, WI)
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment
Goal: The goal of this program is to provide real-time information about fast-breaking environmental hazards, communicable outbreaks, or terrorist events.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Other Conditions
Goal: The goal of this study is to determine how many Community Health Workers (CHW) would be needed to reduce emergency department (ED) visits and associated hospitalizations among their assigned patients to be cost-neutral from a payer's perspective.
Impact: This study adds significant knowledge to the existing literature on CHW programs, and particularly provides critical information to payers that can be used for making decisions on appropriate payment models
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Men, Urban
Goal: The mission of the Rikers Health Advocacy Program is to provide an intensive AIDS education designed to reduce HIV risk behaviors for incarcerated adolescent male drug users.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases
Goal: The goal of this intervention is to prevent new STD infections.
Impact: The Safe in the City program shows that clinic waiting room videos displaying prevention knowledge and techniques can actually help to reduce the number of new infections of certain STDs.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Built Environment
Goal: Safe Routes to School programs aim to make it safer for students to walk and bike to school and encourage more walking and biking where safety is not a barrier.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The primary goal of the School Lunch Initiative is to transform the way Berkeley public school students eat lunch and to educate children about food, health, and the environment.
Impact: Three years after its conception, the program successfully eliminated nearly all processed foods from the school district dining halls and introduced fresh and organic foods to the daily menu. There was evidence that greater exposure to the School Lunch Initiative was significantly associated with higher nutrition knowledge scores among fourth graders and seventh graders. Furthermore, elementary school students from the schools with highly developed School Lunch Initiative components clearly expressed a higher preference for fruits and vegetables.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Families
Goal: The goal of the community education, training and baseline testing component of the SCORE Concussion Program is to improve community understanding of concussions and response post-injury.
Impact: In 2012, The SCORE Concussion Education and Baseline Testing Program provided baseline testing and student athlete education to 1,522 children, lead 32 parent and coach education sessions, and conducted workshop training in more than 30 schools.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Adults, Urban
Goal: The goal of SUMIT is to reduce unprotected sexual contact between HIV-positive men and their HIV-negative or unknown-serostatus partners.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Goal: The goals of Sister-to-Sister are to eliminate or reduce sex risk behaviors, and to prevent new STD infections.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Intervention Data, Urban
Goal: The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a social work intervention aimed to address the medical and social needs of inpatient super-utilizers.
Impact: This intervention was modeled after the "Bridge Model" by intensifying patient engagement with an average of 40 patient contacts over 6 months following an index admission. This intervention has the potential to reduce health services utilization and cost among inpatient super utilizers.