Strategies

What Works for Health includes evidence-informed strategies to create communities where everyone can thrive.

25 Strategies
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Advocacy for victims of intimate partner violence

Work to partner with victims/survivors of intimate partner violence, help them with safety plans, and link them to community services (e.g., legal, housing, financial advice, emergency shelter, etc.)

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Community Safety

Alternative fuels initiatives

Support alternative fuel and vehicle use via financial incentives (e.g., tax benefits, rebates, etc.), mandates (e.g., consumption targets or renewable fuel standards), research and development investments, etc.

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Air and Water Quality

CAFO regulations

Establish local regulations for confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that address location, size, facility management, and pollution contributions to complement U.S. EPA regulations

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Air and Water Quality

Carpool & rideshare programs

Help participants share transportation via informal arrangements between individuals, formally arranged ridesharing programs, or other ride-matching services

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Air and Water Quality
  • Housing and Transit

Community arts programs

Support locally-based visual, media, and performing arts initiatives for children and adults; also called participatory arts programs

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Family and Social Support

Community centers

Provide space to promote socializing among community members and offer programs and services such as recreational or educational activities, counseling or support services

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Family and Social Support

Georgia Fatherhood Program

Provide employment-based services for non-custodial fathers who pay child support and experience a job loss or a decrease in income

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Family and Social Support

Grocery, housing & utilities cooperatives

Establish a non-share capital cooperative model in which fee-paying members can share the communal resources of a grocery, house, or utility cooperative

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Family and Social Support

Intergenerational communities

Establish policies, plans, and programs that meet the needs of all residents of a community, especially children and older adults, and promote interaction and cooperation between individuals of different generations

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Family and Social Support

Land return for tribal restitution

Return the rights to land, property, and resources to Native people as part of policies and initiatives that promote tribal sovereignty

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Income
  • Family and Social Support

Lead contaminated soil abatement

Clean, remove, replace, or cover lead contaminated soil with non-contaminated soil, mulch, sod, grass, or concrete

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Air and Water Quality

Lead pipe & plumbing material replacement

Replace lead plumbing material such as pipes, service lines, fittings, solder, flux, and fixtures with non-lead plumbing material

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Air and Water Quality

National Fatherhood Initiative's 24/7 Dad

Help men improve their parenting skills and fathering knowledge via a voluntary, comprehensive fatherhood program

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Family and Social Support

National Fatherhood Initiative's InsideOut Dad

Connect incarcerated fathers to their families and prepare them for release via small group education sessions that address fathering knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Family and Social Support

Neighborhood associations

Establish voluntary formal groups of residents who work together to create a unified voice, enhance living conditions in their neighborhood, and address neighborhood concerns

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Family and Social Support

Open Streets

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

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Diet and Exercise
  • Family and Social Support

Proper drug disposal programs

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

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Alcohol and Drug Use
  • Air and Water Quality

Public libraries for community building

Lend materials, offer gathering space, and provide educational, civic, and social programming; open to the community and publicly funded

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Family and Social Support

Recreational marijuana legalization

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

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Alcohol and Drug Use
  • Community Safety

Scrap programs for old vehicles

Provide incentives to trade in old cars or light duty trucks with low fuel efficiency and high emissions and buy new vehicles with higher efficiency and lower emissions; also called scrappage or vehicle early retirement programs

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Air and Water Quality

Sports-related concussion education

Educate youth and college athletes, coaches, and parents about the severity of concussions in sports, proper prevention, detection, reporting, and treatment

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Community Safety

Trauma-informed approaches to community building

Support and strengthen traumatized and distressed residents and communities and address effects of community trauma (e.g., poverty, violence, structural racism, etc.) via a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder, and multilevel approach

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Family and Social Support

Trauma-informed juvenile justice systems

Support a trauma-informed juvenile justice system to recognize and respond to trauma’s impact on youth through staff training and broad adoption of trauma-informed practices and policies

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Community Safety

Youth football full contact rules

Restrict full contact between youth football players via limits to the number of contact practices, head hits per player, delay tackling until a certain age, etc.

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Community Safety