Promising Practices

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults

Goal: SHHC targets individual, social, and built environment levels of behavior change and is designed to improve diet and physical activity behaviors, assess and improve local food and physical environment resources, and shift social norms about active living and healthy eating through civic engagement and capacity building.

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Teens

Goal: The mission of Students Against Violence Everywhere is to decrease violence in schools and communities by promoting meaningful student involvement, education and service opportunities.

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults

Goal: The goal of this intervention is to provide family caregivers of stroke survivors with problem-solving skills and support to manage problems and cope with the stresses of care giving.

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: The goal of a wood stove changeout campaign is to reduce the usage of inefficient wood stoves in order to improve air quality.

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce alcohol misuse among adolescents.

Impact: Middle school students who receive the curriculum have increased knowledge about alcohol misuse when compared to a control group. Students who received programming in the 10th grade had significantly increased alcohol misuse prevention knowledge, decreased alcohol misuse, and increased refusal skills. During their first year of driving, students who received the curriculum were involved in fewer serious traffic or drug offenses than students in the control group.

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

Goal: ASSIST aims to develop a diverse group consisting of young people that will then influence their peers to defy the idea of smoking thus reducing the number of adolescent smokers and reducing its health effects.

Impact: A peer-led intervention reduced smoking among adolescents at a modest cost: the ASSIST program cost of £32 ($42 USD) (95% CI = £29.70–£33.80) per student. The incremental cost per student not smoking at 2 years was £1,500 ($1984 USD) (95% CI = £669–£9,947).

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

Goal: To improve drinking water consumption among adolescents.

Impact: This study shows that provision of filtered, chilled drinking water in school cafeterias coupled with promotion and education is associated with increased consumption of drinking water at school.

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

Goal: The Be a Star program was developed to help preadolescents gain the knowledge and skills necessary to resist drugs.

Impact: During the third year of the evaluation, very strong differences emerged between intervention and control groups. The treatment groups scored significantly higher on the scales rating family bonding, pro-social behavior, self-concept, self-control, decision-making, emotional awareness, assertiveness, cooperation, attitudes toward drugs and alcohol, self-efficacy, attitudes toward African-American culture, and school bonding.

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

Goal: The aims of the BASICS program are 1) to reduce alcohol consumption and its adverse consequences, 2) to promote healthier choices among young adults, and 3) to provide important information and coping skills for risk reduction.

Impact: Students who received a brief individual preventive intervention had significantly greater reductions in negative consequences that persisted over a 4-year period than their control-group counterparts. For those individuals receiving the brief intervention, dependence symptoms were more likely to decrease and less likely to increase.

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: To create a culturally appropriate healthy lifestyle educational program for Latino adolescents at highest risk for Type 2 Diabetes.

Impact: The promising findings of this program suggest that a community-based diabetes prevention program for obese Latino youth is a feasible strategy for improving health in this high-risk population.