Strategies

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

123 Strategies
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Community schools

Combine academic, mental and physical health, and social service resources in schools for students and families via partnerships with community organizations; also called community learning centers
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Education

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Community supported agriculture (CSA)

Establish partnerships between farmers and consumers in which consumers purchase a share of a farm’s products in advance
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise
  • Climate
  • Civic and community resources

Community weight loss challenges

Support temporary programs that work to energize participants to lose weight via prizes, often combined with education, weight status and food intake tracking, regular check-ins, and group support
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Community-based social support for physical activity

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

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Community-wide physical activity campaigns

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
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Competitive pricing for healthy foods

Assign higher costs to non-nutritious foods than nutritious foods via incentives, subsidies, or price discounts for healthy foods and beverages or disincentives or price increases for unhealthy choices
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise
  • Climate

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

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

Comprehensive school reform

Implement a coordinated effort to overhaul school operation, integrating curriculum, instruction, professional development, parent involvement, classroom and school management; also called school-wide or whole school reform
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Education

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

DARE to be You

Provide education and training sessions with parent-child activities and family meals for youth, parents, and care providers
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Education
  • Safety and social support

Early Head Start (EHS)

Provide child care, parent education, physical health and mental health services, and other family supports to pregnant women and parents with low incomes and children from birth to age three
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Education

Societal Rules

  • Budgets