Strategies

Increase patients’ health-related knowledge via efforts to simplify health education materials, improve patient-provider communication, and increase overall literacy

Train volunteers, professionals, or paraprofessionals to help residents assess and reduce environmental home health risks and recommend low cost changes (e.g., improved ventilation, integrated pest management, etc.)

Coordinate efforts to reduce risky sexual behavior among adolescents with work, vocational training, or sports

Notify partners exposed to an STI of their risk, encourage testing, and refer to services; also called contact tracing, or partner counseling and referral services

Provide grants to states and localities to fund activities that build, buy, or rehabilitate affordable housing for rent or homeownership, or provide direct rental assistance to households with low incomes

Establish national standards for the colors of patient wristbands used to alert health care providers about specific conditions such as allergies or elevated fall risk

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

Provide eligible families with low and very low incomes with vouchers to help cover the costs of rental housing; also called Section 8

Provide rapid access to permanent housing and support (e.g., crisis intervention, needs assessment, case management), usually for chronically homeless individuals with persistent mental illness or substance abuse issues

Facilitate mediation between tenants and landlords to resolve conflict and prevent eviction

Provide funding, primarily to families with low or middle incomes, to repair, improve, or modernize dwellings and remove health or safety hazards

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

Support funds that help create or maintain affordable housing, subsidize rental housing, and assist homebuyers with low incomes and non-profit housing developers

Inform adolescents, young adults, and parents about HPV and its consequences, as well as the benefits of vaccination, via videos, printed materials, online content, or in-person efforts

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

Require developers to reserve a proportion of housing units for residents with low incomes via mandatory requirements or incentives, such as density bonuses

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

Offer incentives such as free or discounted bus, rail, or transit passes, reimbursements, partial payments, or pre-tax payroll deductions to encourage individuals’ use of existing public transit

Support a collaborative approach by a multidisciplinary team of professionals working to meet the full range of long-term care (LTC) needs for frail elderly patients living in community settings

Support a four-tiered approach to indoor pest control that minimizes potential hazards to people, property, and the environment

Provide pregnant or parenting teens with services based upon their needs (e.g., counseling, connections to health care or social services, academic support, etc.) in school or community settings

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

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

Eliminate lead-based paint and contaminated dust by removing or encapsulating lead paint, or removing lead painted fixtures and surfaces

Provide legal representation for tenants with low incomes in eviction proceedings or offer limited legal assistance to prepare tenants to represent themselves in court

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

Increase access to LARCs through cost reduction, comprehensive birth control counseling, provider training, efforts to ensure availability at local clinics, etc.

Provide funds to households with low incomes to meet home energy needs, especially for households with children, older adults, or individuals with disabilities

Provide funding via tax credits at the state and local level to support development and rehabilitation costs of low income rental housing

Use traditional and digital media to disseminate information about safe sex

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

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

Provide continuous, comprehensive, whole person primary care that uses a coordinated team of medical providers across the health care system

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

Integrate legal services into health care settings to address legal issues that affect health (e.g., housing, food, utilities); services provided by private practice lawyers, law students, etc.

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

Provide a fixed, multi-component set of fall prevention interventions to older adults, usually in community settings, without an individualized risk assessment

Support initiatives that combine multiple components such as education, skills building, and contraceptive promotion to reduce pregnancy among youth

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

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

Use regulation to extend nurse practitioners’ (NPs’) scope of practice to provide care to the full scope of their training and skills without physician oversight, especially for primary care

Improve work environments for nurses via establishment of strong nursing leadership, organizational support, etc.

Establish roads that avoid built-up areas such as towns, cities, or commercial/business districts