Strategies

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

9 Strategies
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Early childhood home visiting programs

Provide at-risk expectant parents and families with young children with information, support, and training regarding child health, development, and care from prenatal stages through early childhood via trained home visitors

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Community Safety
  • Family and Social Support

Family treatment drug courts

Use specialized courts to work with parents involved in the child welfare system who may lose custody of their children due to substance abuse

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Community Safety
  • Alcohol and Drug Use

Fruit & vegetable incentive programs

Offer participants with low incomes matching funds to purchase healthy foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables; often called bonus dollars, market bucks, produce coupons, or nutrition incentives

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

Healthy school lunch initiatives

Modify the school lunch food environment or school lunch schedules by increasing the convenience of healthy foods, providing healthy options, or ensuring students have enough time to eat

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

Healthy vending machine options

Increase healthy options in vending machines by reducing the price of healthy choices, increasing the number of healthy choices compared to unhealthy choices, etc.

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

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

School breakfast programs

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Education
  • Diet and Exercise

School fruit & vegetable gardens

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

Water availability & promotion interventions

Make water readily available in various settings via regular placement of drinking fountains, water coolers, bottled water in vending machines, etc.

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise