Strategies

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

53 Strategies
Clear all

Alternative fuels initiatives

Support alternative fuel and vehicle use via financial incentives (e.g., tax benefits, rebates, etc.), mandates (e.g., consumption targets or renewable fuel standards), research and development investments, etc.

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Air and Water Quality

Breastfeeding promotion programs

Provide education, information, counseling, and support for breastfeeding to women throughout pre- and post-natal care

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

College-based obesity prevention educational interventions

Support multi-component educational interventions for college students that address nutrition, physical activity, and healthy weight management; often with environmental modifications

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Community gardens

Establish and support land that is gardened or cultivated by community members via community land trusts, gardening education, zoning regulation changes, or service provision (e.g., water or waste disposal)

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Community kitchens for food processing

Establish shared kitchen spaces that support licensed, commercial food processing and connect specialty food processors, farmers, and others who produce value-added goods

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Diet and Exercise

Community-wide physical activity campaigns

Engage a variety of partners in a highly visible, multi-component effort to increase physical activity, often with efforts to address cardiovascular disease risk factors

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Composting

Use aerobic, natural decomposition to divert food and yard waste from landfills and create a nutrient-rich soil amendment product on an individual or large scale

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Air and Water Quality

Electric vehicle initiatives

Replace internal combustion engine vehicles with all-electric vehicles through financial incentives, regulations, and multi-component initiatives

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Air and Water Quality

Electronic Benefit Transfer payment at farmers markets

Enable farmers markets to accept EBT, the electronic payment system of debit cards used to issue and redeem Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Diet and Exercise

Exercise prescriptions

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

Farm to school programs

Incorporate locally grown foods into school meals and snacks, often with visits from food producers, cooking classes, nutrition and waste reduction efforts, and school gardens

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Farmers markets

Support multiple vendor markets where producers sell goods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy items, and prepared foods directly to consumers

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Fruit & vegetable taste testing

Offer samples of fresh fruits and vegetables in cafeterias, nutrition classes, school gardens, or workplace well-being meetings, often as part of a multi-faceted nutrition intervention

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Green space & parks

Increase green space through new parks or open spaces, renovation or enhancement of under-used recreation areas, rehabilitation of vacant lots, brownfields, etc.

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Healthy food initiatives in food pantries

Combine hunger relief efforts with nutrition information and healthy eating opportunities, often with on-site cooking demonstrations, recipe tastings, produce display stands, etc.

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • 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

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

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

Internet-based tobacco cessation interventions

Use websites, computer programs, and other electronic means to provide information, strategies, or behavioral support to tobacco users who want to quit, sometimes with counseling or pharmacotherapy

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Tobacco Use

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

Mass media campaigns against tobacco use

Use broad media-based efforts to educate large groups of current and potential tobacco users about the dangers of tobacco use

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Tobacco Use

Mass media campaigns for physical activity

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

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Mobile produce markets

Support fresh food carts or vehicles that travel to neighborhoods on a set schedule to sell fresh fruits and vegetables

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Multi-component obesity prevention interventions

Combine educational, environmental, and behavioral activities that increase physical activity and improve nutrition (e.g., nutrition education, aerobic/strength training, dietary prescriptions, etc.) in various settings

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

Multi-component school-based obesity prevention interventions

Deliver educational, behavioral, environmental, and other obesity prevention efforts (e.g., education classes, enhanced physical education, healthy food promotion, family outreach, etc.) in schools

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

New grocery stores in underserved areas

Attract new grocery stores that sell a variety of fresh foods, baked goods, packaged, and frozen items to underserved areas via financing initiatives, tax incentives, or zoning regulation

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

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

Permeable pavement projects

Use pervious concrete, porous asphalt, permeable interlocking pavers, open-jointed blocks or cells, or other permeable pavement in individual or commercial development efforts; also called porous or pervious pavement

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Air and Water Quality

Point-of-decision prompts for physical activity

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

Point-of-purchase prompts for healthy foods

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Proper drug disposal programs

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

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Alcohol and Drug Use
  • Air and Water Quality

Rain gardens & other bioretention systems

Establish bioretention systems (e.g., rain gardens, bioretention cells, green roofs, planter boxes, bioswales, etc.) to make city landscapes more permeable to help control stormwater

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Air and Water Quality

Restaurant nutrition labeling

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

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Diet and Exercise

Safe Routes to Schools

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

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

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

School-based physical education enhancements

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

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Diet and Exercise

Scrap programs for old vehicles

Provide incentives to trade in old cars or light duty trucks with low fuel efficiency and high emissions and buy new vehicles with higher efficiency and lower emissions; also called scrappage or vehicle early retirement programs

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Air and Water Quality

Secondhand smoke education interventions

Use counseling, informational materials, etc. to inform smokers and non-smokers of the harms of secondhand smoke and encourage them to implement home smoking bans

Evidence Rating:
Mixed Evidence
  • Tobacco Use

Smoke-free policies for indoor areas

Implement private sector rules or public sector regulations that prohibit smoking indoors or restrict it to designated, often outdoor, areas

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Tobacco Use

Smoke-free policies for multi-unit housing

Implement private sector rules or public sector regulations that prohibit smoking in and around multi-unit housing

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Tobacco Use

Smoke-free policies for outdoor areas

Implement private sector rules or public sector regulations that prohibit smoking outdoors or restrict it to designated areas

Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence
  • Tobacco Use

Statewide comprehensive tobacco programs

Coordinate state and community-level cessation and prevention interventions and provide information on the dangers of tobacco using a combination of educational, regulatory, clinical, social, and economic strategies

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Tobacco Use

Tobacco cessation contests

Encourage participants to quit using tobacco by a set date or during a specific time period and give successful participants a chance to win financial rewards or other prizes; often called Quit & Win contests

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Tobacco Use

Urban agriculture

Support food-producing and income-earning activities in urban environments (e.g., edible landscapes, front yard or rooftop gardens, window farming, hydroponics, livestock, etc.)

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Diet and Exercise