Strategies

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

33 Strategies
Clear all

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

Mentoring programs to prevent youth delinquency

Pair youth at risk for delinquent behavior with mentors to develop relationships and spend time at regular meetings for an extended period; mentors have greater knowledge, skills, etc. than mentees

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Community Safety

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) for juvenile offenders

Use an intensive, family- and community-based intervention that addresses individual, family and environmental risk factors that affect antisocial behaviors among serious juvenile offenders

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Community Safety

Naloxone education & distribution programs

Distribute Naloxone to trained community members and first responders to reverse opioid overdoses

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Alcohol and Drug Use

Neighborhood watch

Support the efforts of neighborhood residents to work together in preventing crime by reporting suspicious or potentially criminal behavior to local law enforcement

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Community Safety

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

Sports-related concussion education

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

Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence
  • Community Safety

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

Transitional and subsidized jobs

Establish time-limited, subsidized, paid jobs to help individuals with barriers to employment transition to unsubsidized employment

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Employment

Trauma-informed juvenile justice systems

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

Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion
  • Community Safety