Strategies

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

30 Strategies
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Healthy foods at catered events

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

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Diet and Exercise

High school completion programs for pregnant and parenting teens

Provide pregnant and parenting teens with services such as education, vocational training, case management, health care, child care, and transportation assistance to support high school completion

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Education

Individually-adapted physical activity programs

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

Integrated pest management for indoor use

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Housing and Transit

Kinship foster care for children in the child welfare system

Arrange full-time foster care by relatives or adults who are not a child’s parent but have a family relationship with the child when a child is removed from home due to a safety concern

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Community Safety

Labor unions

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Employment
  • Employment

Neighborhood watch

Support the efforts of neighborhood residents to work together in preventing crime by reporting suspicious or potentially criminal behavior to local law enforcement

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Community Safety

Nutrition prescriptions

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

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Diet and Exercise

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

Preschool education programs

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social-emotional growth among children who are not old enough to enter formal schooling

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Education