Strategies

Offer group educational, social, creative, musical, or physical activities that promote social interactions, regular attendance, and community involvement among older adults

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

Deliver tobacco cessation advice and motivational messages via text or video message

Restrict child-focused advertising for unhealthy foods and beverages via bans on unhealthy food and drink ads during children’s TV programs, product placement in children’s movies, etc.

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

Build, strengthen, and maintain social networks that provide supportive relationships for behavior change through walking groups or other community-based interventions

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

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.

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

Implement systems that help health professionals support patient tobacco cessation, often with referrals, self-help pamphlets, and pharmacotherapy

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

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

Provide pregnant and parenting teens with services such as education, vocational training, case management, health care, child care, and transportation assistance to support high school completion

Teach behavioral skills that can help individuals incorporate physical activity into their daily routines

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

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

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

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

Offer young children opportunities to eat healthy foods and engage in physical activity by providing fresh fruits and vegetables, incorporating physical activity into daily classroom routines, etc.

Support home visits that teach parents about early childhood development and effective parenting strategies, with child development screenings, parental meetings, and links to community resources

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

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

Partner with doctors, nurse practitioners, and other medical professionals to incorporate literacy support into regular well-child visits, especially in lower income communities

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

Provide health care services on school premises to attending elementary, middle, and high school students; physical and mental health services provided by teams of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physicians

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

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

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

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

Reduce patients’ out-of-pocket costs for tobacco cessation therapies such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and cessation counseling participation

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

Support breastfeeding via private, well-equipped lactation spaces in workplaces, along with breastfeeding breaks, flexible schedules, professional lactation support, etc.

Use educational, environmental, and behavioral strategies to improve food choices and physical activity opportunities in worksite settings, also called workplace health programs