Strategies

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

81 Strategies
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Housing mediation services

Facilitate mediation between tenants and landlords to resolve conflict and prevent eviction
Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation

Housing rehabilitation loan & grant programs

Provide funding, primarily to families with low or middle incomes, to repair, improve, or modernize dwellings and remove health or safety hazards
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation

Housing reparations

Apologize for discriminatory housing policies; increase subsidies, financing, and paths to homeownership for people of color; and invest in systematically disadvantaged neighborhoods
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth
  • Housing and transportation
  • Civic and community resources

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies
  • Worldviews, culture and norms

Housing trust funds

Support funds that help create or maintain affordable housing, subsidize rental housing, and assist homebuyers with low incomes and non-profit housing developers
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation
  • Civic and community resources

Societal Rules

  • Budgets

Inclusionary zoning & housing policies

Require developers to reserve a proportion of housing units for residents with low incomes via mandatory requirements or incentives, such as density bonuses
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation
  • Air, water and land
  • Civic and community resources

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies

Individual Development Accounts (IDAs)

Support subsidized asset accumulation programs in which deposits by participants with low and moderate incomes are matched by program sponsors; withdrawals must be used for qualified expenses to retain matching funds
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth

Societal Rules

  • Budgets

Individual incentives for public transportation

Offer incentives such as free or discounted bus, rail, or transit passes, reimbursements, partial payments, or pre-tax payroll deductions to encourage individuals’ use of existing public transit
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation
  • Climate

Integrated pest management for indoor use

Support a four-tiered approach to indoor pest control that minimizes potential hazards to people, property, and the environment
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Housing and transportation

Job-sharing programs

Offer flexible working arrangements, allowing the duties of a single full-time position to be covered by two part-time employees
Evidence Rating:
Insufficient Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Labor unions

Organize workers to bargain collectively for improved wages, benefits, and working conditions
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth
  • Civic and community resources

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices
  • Governance
  • Worldviews, culture and norms