Strategies

Help participants share transportation via informal arrangements between individuals, formally arranged ridesharing programs, or other ride-matching services

Provide patients with prescriptions for exercise plans, often accompanied by progress checks at office visits, counseling, activity logs, and exercise testing

Offer payments, credits toward health insurance premiums, or other financial rewards to encourage employees to lose weight, eat more healthily, quit smoking, engage in physical activity, etc.

Provide outreach and support to assist those whose employers do not offer affordable coverage, who are self-employed, or who are unemployed

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

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

Provide messages that support physical activity to large and broad audiences using television, social media, radio, billboards, newspapers, and other print media

Regulate mental health insurance to increase access to mental health services, including treatment for substance use disorders

Introduce or expand transportation options that are available to the public and run on a scheduled timetable (e.g., buses, trains, ferries, rapid transit, etc.)

Establish transportation services for areas with low population densities using publicly funded buses and vans on a set schedule, dial-a-ride transit, volunteer ridesharing, etc.