Strategies

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

35 Strategies
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Fruit & vegetable gleaning initiatives

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.

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Diet and Exercise

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

Housing reparations

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

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Income
  • Housing and Transit

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

Labor unions

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Employment
  • Employment

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

Mixed-use development

Support a combination of land uses (e.g., residential, commercial, recreational) in development initiatives, often through zoning regulations or Smart Growth initiatives

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Housing and Transit
  • Diet and Exercise