Communities across the country have implemented policies and programs listed in What Works for Health to tackle key health challenges. Learn more about their experiences putting these strategies into action.
What Works for Health
Evidence matters. Our What Works for Health tool will help you find policies and programs that are a good fit for your community's priorities.
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Make the Most of What Works for Health
Learn how you can effectively use What Works for Health to find evidence-informed policies and programs to make a difference in your community and explore what's behind our evidence ratings.
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What Works for Health Reports
Read our reports for deeper looks into what's working for specific topics and areas of the country.
What Works? Social and Economic Opportunities to Improve Health for All
When we work together to improve education, employment, income, and family and social supports—the social and economic factors that influence our communities—we can improve the health of all who live, learn, work, and play there.
What Works for Health: Strategies to Improve Rural Health
The What Works for Health: Strategies to Improve Rural Health report outlines key steps toward building healthy communities – rural, urban, and anywhere in between – along with some specific policies and programs that can improve health.
Featured Strategies
These strategies can help your community in its health improvement journey.Summer learning programs
Provide academic instruction to students during the summer, often along with enrichment activities such as art or outdoor activities
Flexible scheduling
Offer employees control over an aspect of their schedule through arrangements such as flex time, flex hours, compressed work weeks, or self-scheduled shift work
Community policing
Implement a policing philosophy based on community partnership, organizational transformation, and problem solving techniques to proactively address public safety issues: also called community-oriented policing
Hot spot policing
Focus police resources and enforcement on high-activity crime locations within a community (e.g., street blocks and buildings) using policing tactics such as increasing enforcement time, problem-oriented policing, etc.
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Action Center
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Partner Center
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Health Rankings
Find out how healthy your community is.
Community Coaching
Ready to take action, but not sure where to start?