Strategies

Incorporate locally grown foods into school meals and snacks, often with visits from food producers, cooking classes, nutrition and waste reduction efforts, and school gardens

Support multiple vendor markets where producers sell goods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy items, and prepared foods directly to consumers

Provide education on basic budgeting, bank use, credit management, bankruptcy, credit building and counseling, homeownership, retirement, divorce, etc.

Offer payments, credits toward health insurance premiums, or other financial rewards to encourage employees to lose weight, eat more healthily, quit smoking, engage in physical activity, etc.

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

Offer opportunities for group purchase and distribution of selected grocery items, generally at a reduced price

Support businesses or organizations that aggregate, distribute, and market local and regional food products (e.g., fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, grains, and prepared items)

Gather food left in fields after a primary harvest, food in fields where harvesting is not profitable, or excess produce from orchards, packing houses, urban agriculture sites, etc.

Offer participants with low incomes matching funds to purchase healthy foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables; often called bonus dollars, market bucks, produce coupons, or nutrition incentives

Offer samples of fresh fruits and vegetables in cafeterias, nutrition classes, school gardens, or workplace well-being meetings, often as part of a multi-faceted nutrition intervention

Adopt policies that allow custodial parents who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to collect all child support paid by the non-custodial parent; no portion is retained by the state

Provide immunity from arrest, charge, or prosecution for drug possession or paraphernalia when individuals experiencing or witnessing drug overdose summon emergency services

Increase green space through new parks or open spaces, renovation or enhancement of under-used recreation areas, rehabilitation of vacant lots, brownfields, etc.

Encourage convenience stores, corner stores, or gas station markets to carry fresh produce and other healthier food options

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.

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

Apologize for discriminatory housing policies; increase subsidies, financing, and paths to homeownership for people of color; and invest in systematically disadvantaged neighborhoods

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

Support subsidized asset accumulation programs in which deposits by participants with low and moderate incomes are matched by program sponsors; withdrawals must be used for qualified expenses to retain matching funds

Teach behavioral skills that can help individuals incorporate physical activity into their daily routines

Offer flexible working arrangements, allowing the duties of a single full-time position to be covered by two part-time employees

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

Organize workers to bargain collectively for improved wages, benefits, and working conditions

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

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

Establish locally mandated wages that are higher than state or federal minimum wage levels

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

Use television, radio, print, and social media efforts to increase awareness of underage drinking and its consequences

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

Support programs that provide matched dollar incentives for low or moderate income individuals to place some or all of their tax refund in a savings account

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

Support programs that provide small loans, usually to individuals with lower incomes, to start or expand a small business, often with business development training and other technical assistance

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

Increase the lowest hourly, daily, or monthly compensation that employers may legally pay to workers

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

Combine educational, environmental, and behavioral activities that increase physical activity and improve nutrition (e.g., nutrition education, aerobic/strength training, dietary prescriptions, etc.) in various settings

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

Provide physical infrastructure (e.g., bike parking or showers), educational or social support (e.g., walking groups), and financial incentives that support active commuting

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

Provided work supports for low income individuals and families (e.g., job search assistance, transitional jobs, subsidized child care, health insurance, etc.); participants worked at least 30 hours/week

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.

Provide prescriptions with healthy eating goals for patients and families, often accompanied by progress checks at office visits; can include partnerships with local farmers markets via FVRx programs

Use internet-based shopping sites to supply refrigerated, frozen, and non-perishable groceries for residential ordering and delivery