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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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Georgia Retrofit Program (Georgia)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air, Children, Adults

Goal: The goal of the Georgia Retrofit Program is to improve air quality by reducing emissions among diesel fueled fleet vehicles.

Georgia's Teenage and Adult Driver Responsibility Act (Georgia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Teens

Goal: The goal of TADRA is to reduce fatal crashes among teenage drivers.

Impact: After the implementation of TADRA, speed-related fatal crashes were cut by 42%, and alcohol-related fatal crashes decreased nearly 60%.

Behavior Management Through Adventure

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Men

Goal: The goal of Behavior Management through Adventure is to address the needs of at-risk youth in therapeutic settings.

Impact: Behavior Management Through Adventure was successful in lowering rearrest rates, decreasing the time period from release until rearrest, improving depression symptoms, increasing family self-concept, and lowering social introversion.

Healthy Homes/Healthy Families (Georgia)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Families, Rural

Goal: Healthy Homes/Healthy Families aims to help rural residents of Southwest Georgia make healthy behavior changes.

SAHARA: A computer-based HIV intervention (Atlanta, GA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: SAHARA is a computer-based HIV intervention that targets African American women to promote healthy sexual behaviors to reduce the risk of HIV transmission.

Impact: These findings which demonstrate major improvements in HIV-preventive behaviors suggest that SAHARA is an effective evidence-based promising practice; it is inexpensive and only requires two hours.

Silver Comet Trail (Georgia)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Transportation, Children, Teens, Adults, Families

Goal: The goal of the program was to provide an outdoor recreational and bicycle commuting trail along an abandoned railway line in Georgia.

Strong African American Families (SAAF) (Georgia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural

Goal: The SAAF program aims to prevent initiation of risk behaviors such as drug abuse, alcohol and cigarette use, and sexual activity in low-income African American preadolescents.

Impact: This program has helped create positive family interactions and support youth and teens as they take the next steps toward a positive future.

Teams-Games-Tournaments Alcohol Prevention (Georgia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to educate students about alcohol and to prevent alcohol abuse.

Impact: Evaluations showed significant gains in alcohol-related knowledge, significantly better attitudes toward drinking and driving, and reductions in alcohol consumption.

Women Involved in Life Learning from Other Women (WILLOW) (various cities in Alabama and Georgia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Adults, Women, Urban

Goal: The goal of the WILLOW intervention is to provide women living with HIV/AIDS with the skills and education needed to support safer sexual decisions.

Impact: The WILLOW program succeeded in reducing the number of reported episodes of unprotected vaginal intercourse, increasing the use of condoms and condom self-efficacy, decreasing the incidence of bacterial infections (chlamydia and gonorrhea), and improving HIV knowledge.

Babies Can't Wait (Georgia)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Families

Goal: The goal of Babies Can't Wait is to guarantee access to early intervention services for infants and toddlers with special needs.

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.