Strategies

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

Offer time during the school day for children to play in the gym, often during lunch period; shared use agreements can expand open gym opportunities to community members outside school hours

Allow community members to gather, socialize, walk, run, bike, skate, etc. on streets temporarily to closed to motorized traffic; also called Ciclovía programs

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

Incorporate classroom-based physical activities, such as classroom energizers, into academic lessons or as a break, usually for elementary students

Modify local environments to support physical activity, increase access to new or existing facilities for physical activity, or build new facilities

Place motivational signs on or near stairwells, elevators, and escalators that encourage individuals to use stairs

Place motivational signs on posters, front of package labels, or shelf labels near fruits, vegetables, and other items that encourage individuals to purchase healthier food options

Use databases, housed in state agencies, to track prescribing and dispensing of Schedule II, III, IV, and V drugs and other controlled substances

Allow law enforcement officials to stop drivers solely for failing to use a seat belt

Establish programs that accept expired, unwanted, or unused medicines from designated users and dispose of them responsibly

Allow adults to possess a limited amount of marijuana for personal, non-medical use

Offer opportunities for adults to play athletic games such as soccer, softball, kickball, basketball, etc. at beginner, intermediate, and competitive levels

Educate owners, managers, servers, and sellers at alcohol establishments about strategies to avoid illegally selling alcohol to underage youth or intoxicated patrons

Provide nutrition information on menus and signboards at restaurants and other food outlets

Use victim-offender dialogue to address the harm caused by a crime and victims’ needs; can take place pre-arrest or post sentence via sharing circles, victim-offender mediation, or face-to-face conferences

Repeal government control over retail sales of alcoholic beverages, allowing commercial retailing of those beverages

Conduct individual assessments that gauge older adults’ risk of falling and develop personalized approaches to help prevent falls

Attach metal bars, frames, or crush proof cabs to a tractor that provide a safety zone for an operator in the event of a rollover or overturn

Promote walking and biking to school through education, incentives, and environmental changes; often called SRTS

Increase enforcement of laws that prohibit alcoholic beverage service to intoxicated customers, usually with fines, imprisonment, or revocation of a license

Organize tours of prison facilities for juvenile delinquents or youth at risk of delinquency and allow them to observe prison life and attend inmates’ presentations; also called juvenile awareness programs

Support programs to provide students with a nutritious breakfast in the cafeteria, from grab and go carts in hallways, or in classrooms

Limit access to competitive foods and beverages in schools via restrictions on foods that are not provided through the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program.

Establish designated areas where students can garden with guidance, often with nutrition and food preparation lessons and opportunities for taste tasting and hands-on learning

Prohibit the sale of unhealthy foods such as sugar sweetened beverages, candy, and other non-nutritious snacks at school fundraisers, often as part of a broader nutrition policy

Regulate the quality of food that can be sold to students through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), à la carte options, vending machines, etc.

Provide youth with teen dating violence education that addresses healthy relationships, gender norms, relationship coercion, and violence in a school setting

Address nutrition in schools via educational (e.g., classroom or curricula-wide efforts, peer training, etc.), environmental (e.g., school menus, classroom snacks, etc.), and other approaches

Expand or enhance school-based physical education (PE) by lengthening existing classes, increasing physical activity during class, adding new PE classes, etc.

Encourage children to spend time away from TV and other stationary screen media, often as part of a multi-faceted effort to increase physical activity and improve nutrition

Require a minimum age for sellers in off-premise locations that sell alcohol and servers and bartenders in on-premise locations

Create contracts that support community access to existing public, private, or nonprofit facilities before or after business hours; also called joint use, open use, or community use agreements

Adopt laws that hold private property owners who provide alcohol to minors or obviously intoxicated individuals on their property liable if someone is killed or injured as a result

Provide objective, normative information to reduce college students’ misperceptions about alcohol use and, ultimately, change their drinking behavior

Increase the price of sugar sweetened beverages (e.g., soda) by adding an excise or sales tax

Educate youth and college athletes, coaches, and parents about the severity of concussions in sports, proper prevention, detection, reporting, and treatment

Strengthen laws that allow young drivers to gain driving experience in stages; often includes passenger and nighttime driving limitations and higher minimum ages for learner’s permits, intermediate, and full licenses

Provide short-term employment opportunities for youth, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds

Provide sterile injection equipment and often other treatment and referral services to people who inject drugs; also called needle or syringe exchange programs and needle syringe programs

Modify the built environment to affect traffic speed and patterns via speed humps, pedestrian center crossing islands, roundabouts, etc.

Support a trauma-informed juvenile justice system to recognize and respond to trauma’s impact on youth through staff training and broad adoption of trauma-informed practices and policies

Place youth with mental, emotional, and behavioral health challenges in foster families that provide a structured, nurturing, therapeutic environment; also called Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC)

Place severely and chronically delinquent youth in foster families that are trained in structured behavior management and connected to TFCO program staff; formerly called Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care

Increase the price of snack products high in sugar and fat by adding an excise or sales tax

Prohibit all drivers from texting or talking on a cell phone while driving

Require both licensed firearm dealers and unlicensed (i.e., private) firearm sellers to conduct background checks of potential firearm purchasers; also known as comprehensive background checks

Require all motorcycle operators and passengers to wear a helmet; laws are established statewide and may also include mopeds and scooters