Strategies

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

64 Strategies
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Healthy food initiatives in food pantries

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

High school equivalency credentials

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Education
  • Employment

Homework or extra credit for PE class

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Household lead control education interventions

Inform parents and caregivers about lead exposure pathways from contaminated dust, soil, water, and air as well as the irreversible health consequences of lead exposure

Evidence Rating:
Evidence of Ineffectiveness
  • Housing and Transit
  • Air and Water Quality

Individual Development Accounts (IDAs)

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Income

Juvenile curfews

Restrict youth under a certain age from being in public places during certain hours, usually at night

Evidence Rating:
Evidence of Ineffectiveness
  • Community Safety

Land banking

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Housing and Transit
  • Diet and Exercise

Living wage laws

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Income

Matched dollar incentives for saving tax refunds

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Income

Minimum wage increases

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

Evidence Rating:
Mixed Evidence
  • Income