Strategies

Enhance streetscapes with greater sidewalk coverage and walkway connectivity, street crossing safety features, traffic calming measures, and other design elements

Establish high deductible health plans paired with pre-tax medical expense accounts such as Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) or Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and information tools

Provide free and confidential counseling and service referrals via telephone-based conversation, web-based chat, or text message to individuals in crisis, particularly those with severe mental health concerns

Increase health care providers’ skills and knowledge to understand and respond to cultural differences, value diversity, etc. via factual information, skills training, and other efforts

Tailor health care to patients’ norms, beliefs, and values, as well as their language and literacy skills

Use a public health approach to detect and intervene in potentially violent situations, educate and mobilize communities, and connect individuals at high risk of violence to services; formerly called Chicago CeaseFire

Offer debt advice from trained providers to tenants with unpaid, overdue rent to help repay debt and increase financial literacy

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

Convene small groups of families for facilitated weekly meetings that include a family meal, structured activities, parent support time, and parent-child play therapy

Support fathers’ active involvement in child rearing via various father-focused or family-focused interventions