Strategies

Provide patients with prescriptions for exercise plans, often accompanied by progress checks at office visits, counseling, activity logs, and exercise testing

Implement systems that help health professionals support patient tobacco cessation, often with referrals, self-help pamphlets, and pharmacotherapy

Provide outreach and support to assist those whose employers do not offer affordable coverage, who are self-employed, or who are unemployed

Use broad media-based efforts to educate large groups of current and potential tobacco users about the dangers of tobacco use

Regulate mental health insurance to increase access to mental health services, including treatment for substance use disorders

Deliver educational, behavioral, environmental, and other obesity prevention efforts (e.g., education classes, enhanced physical education, healthy food promotion, family outreach, etc.) in schools

Expand or enhance school-based physical education (PE) by lengthening existing classes, increasing physical activity during class, adding new PE classes, etc.

Use counseling, informational materials, etc. to inform smokers and non-smokers of the harms of secondhand smoke and encourage them to implement home smoking bans

Implement private sector rules or public sector regulations that prohibit smoking indoors or restrict it to designated, often outdoor, areas

Reduce patients’ out-of-pocket costs for tobacco cessation therapies such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and cessation counseling participation