Strategies

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

5 Strategies
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Complete Streets & streetscape design initiatives

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

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation
  • Diet and exercise
  • Civic and community resources
  • Climate

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Mixed-use development

Support a combination of land uses (e.g., residential, commercial, recreational) in development initiatives, often through zoning regulations or Smart Growth initiatives
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation
  • Diet and exercise
  • Air, water and land
  • Civic and community resources
  • Climate

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies

Safe Routes to Schools

Promote walking and biking to school through education, incentives, and environmental changes; often called SRTS
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation
  • Diet and exercise
  • Climate

Walking school buses

Arrange active transportation with a fixed route, designated stops, and pick up times when children can walk to school with adult chaperones
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation
  • Diet and exercise
  • Climate

Zoning regulation and land use policy reforms

Reform zoning regulations to remove exclusionary zoning codes, address physical environment aesthetics and safety, street continuity and connectivity, residential density, and mixed-use development, etc.
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation
  • Diet and exercise
  • Air, water and land
  • Climate

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies