Strategies

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

412 Strategies

Weatherization assistance program

Provide assistance to families with low incomes to make their homes more energy efficient and to permanently reduce their energy bills
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation

WIC & Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Programs

Support Farmers’ Market Nutrition Programs, which provide WIC and Senior Nutrition Program participants with vouchers for fresh, unprepared, locally grown fruits and vegetables
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Workplace supports for breastfeeding

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

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth
  • Diet and exercise

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Worksite obesity prevention interventions

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

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Youth apprenticeship initiatives

Provide participating high school students with professional opportunities that combine academic and on-the-job training or mentorship
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth

Youth civics education

Teach students attitudes, skills, knowledge, and behavior needed to participate in and contribute to a democracy
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Education
  • Civic and community resources

Societal Rules

  • Worldviews, culture and norms

Youth football full contact rules

Restrict full contact between youth football players via limits to the number of contact practices, head hits per player, delay tackling until a certain age, etc.
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Safety and social support

Youth leadership programs

Provide youth with leadership building opportunities, often through social activities such as advocacy groups, peer education, youth-led participatory research, and local government youth advisory councils and boards
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Safety and social support
  • Civic and community resources

Youth transfer to the adult criminal justice system

Transfer youth who are arrested from the juvenile justice system to the adult criminal justice system by discretionary transfer decisions or transfer qualifying criteria
Evidence Rating:
Evidence of Ineffectiveness

Community Conditions

  • Safety and social support

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies

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