Strategies

Combine hunger relief efforts with nutrition information and healthy eating opportunities, often with on-site cooking demonstrations, recipe tastings, produce display stands, etc.

Provide more fresh fruits and vegetables, smaller portions, low fat, and reduced sodium or reduced sugar food options and other healthy foods at catered events

Modify the school lunch food environment or school lunch schedules by increasing the convenience of healthy foods, providing healthy options, or ensuring students have enough time to eat

Increase healthy options in vending machines by reducing the price of healthy choices, increasing the number of healthy choices compared to unhealthy choices, etc.

Provide pregnant and parenting teens with services such as education, vocational training, case management, health care, child care, and transportation assistance to support high school completion

Offer programs to help individuals without a high school diploma or its equivalent achieve a high school equivalency credential

Assign homework or extra credit activities for physical education (PE) or health classes that require students to be physically active outside of school

Strengthen policies that mandate ignition interlock installation in vehicles to prevent operation by a driver with a high blood alcohol concentration

Change state-level school finance systems to increase funding for school districts serving large populations of students from low income backgrounds, students of color, and students with disabilities, special needs, or limited English skills

Require wholesalers or retailers to record an identification number for beer kegs and a purchaser’s information (e.g., name and address, date of birth, etc.) at the time of purchase

Emphasize high expectations for all students, parent and student commitment, empowered principals, and regular student assessments that inform continuous improvement in a lengthened school-year and school-day

Acquire, hold, manage, and develop properties such as vacant lots, abandoned buildings, or foreclosures, and transition them to productive uses, often affordable housing developments

Delay school start times for middle and high schools to better align with adolescent sleep-wake cycles; often until after 8:30 or 9:00 a.m.

Use mass media campaigns to persuade individuals to avoid drinking and driving or to prevent others from doing so; campaigns often focus on the negative consequences of alcohol-impaired driving

Provide messages that support physical activity to large and broad audiences using television, social media, radio, billboards, newspapers, and other print media

Allow eligible patients to use marijuana for medical purposes; often called medical marijuana laws (MMLs)

Provide medications such as methadone to individuals diagnosed with opioid use disorder in outpatient, residential, and hospital settings, usually with counseling and behavioral therapies; often called MAT

Maintain the current legal age when an individual can purchase alcoholic beverages; currently 21 years in all states

Support a combination of land uses (e.g., residential, commercial, recreational) in development initiatives, often through zoning regulations or Smart Growth initiatives

Support fresh food carts or vehicles that travel to neighborhoods on a set schedule to sell fresh fruits and vegetables

Distribute Naloxone to trained community members and first responders to reverse opioid overdoses

Attract new grocery stores that sell a variety of fresh foods, baked goods, packaged, and frozen items to underserved areas via financing initiatives, tax incentives, or zoning regulation

Focus heavily on reading and math achievement, enforce high behavioral expectations through a formal discipline system, lengthen instructional time, and increase feedback on teacher performance

Offer young children opportunities to eat healthy foods and engage in physical activity by providing fresh fruits and vegetables, incorporating physical activity into daily classroom routines, etc.

Offer time during the school day for children to play in the gym, often during lunch period; shared use agreements can expand open gym opportunities to community members outside school hours

Allow community members to gather, socialize, walk, run, bike, skate, etc. on streets temporarily to closed to motorized traffic; also called Ciclovía programs

Support home visits that teach parents about early childhood development and effective parenting strategies, with child development screenings, parental meetings, and links to community resources

Incorporate classroom-based physical activities, such as classroom energizers, into academic lessons or as a break, usually for elementary students

Modify local environments to support physical activity, increase access to new or existing facilities for physical activity, or build new facilities

Place motivational signs on or near stairwells, elevators, and escalators that encourage individuals to use stairs

Teach positively stated behavior expectations to all students, often reinforced with prizes or privileges and supported with coaching and data

Support quality improvement efforts in early child care and preschool via financial incentives, standards, processes to monitor standards and ensure compliance, etc.

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social-emotional growth among children who are not old enough to enter formal schooling

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social development among young children from families with low incomes, with supports such as home visiting or parental education

Use databases, housed in state agencies, to track prescribing and dispensing of Schedule II, III, IV, and V drugs and other controlled substances

Create a school culture of high behavioral and academic expectations, with intense tutoring, increased teacher performance feedback, lengthened instruction time, and health care services

Establish programs that accept expired, unwanted, or unused medicines from designated users and dispose of them responsibly

Provide publicly funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) education to 3- and 4-year-olds, through large-scale or universal efforts

Partner with doctors, nurse practitioners, and other medical professionals to incorporate literacy support into regular well-child visits, especially in lower income communities

Allow adults to possess a limited amount of marijuana for personal, non-medical use

Educate owners, managers, servers, and sellers at alcohol establishments about strategies to avoid illegally selling alcohol to underage youth or intoxicated patrons

Provide nutrition information on menus and signboards at restaurants and other food outlets

Repeal government control over retail sales of alcoholic beverages, allowing commercial retailing of those beverages

Promote walking and biking to school through education, incentives, and environmental changes; often called SRTS

Increase enforcement of laws that prohibit alcoholic beverage service to intoxicated customers, usually with fines, imprisonment, or revocation of a license

Require school officials to apply predetermined consequences for certain infractions, regardless of situational context or circumstances; consequences are usually severe (e.g., suspension or expulsion)

Support programs to provide students with a nutritious breakfast in the cafeteria, from grab and go carts in hallways, or in classrooms

Limit access to competitive foods and beverages in schools via restrictions on foods that are not provided through the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program.

Establish designated areas where students can garden with guidance, often with nutrition and food preparation lessons and opportunities for taste tasting and hands-on learning

Prohibit the sale of unhealthy foods such as sugar sweetened beverages, candy, and other non-nutritious snacks at school fundraisers, often as part of a broader nutrition policy