Strategies

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

28 Strategies matching covid-19

Child care subsidies

Provide financial assistance to working parents, or parents attending school, to pay for child care
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth

Societal Rules

  • Budgets

Child tax credit expansion

Expand federal or state child tax credits by increasing credit amounts, making credits refundable, decreasing or eliminating the earnings threshold, or creating a fully refundable supplement
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies

Debt advice for tenants with unpaid rent

Offer debt advice from trained providers to tenants with unpaid, overdue rent to help repay debt and increase financial literacy
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth
  • Housing and transportation

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)

Expand refundable earned income tax credits for working individuals and families with low to moderate incomes
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth

Societal Rules

  • Laws and policies

Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)

Provide confidential worksite-based counseling and referrals to employees to address personal and workplace challenges
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth
  • Safety and social support

Financial education for adults

Provide education on basic budgeting, bank use, credit management, bankruptcy, credit building and counseling, homeownership, retirement, divorce, etc.
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth

Flexible scheduling

Offer employees control over an aspect of their schedule through arrangements such as flex time, flex hours, compressed work weeks, or self-scheduled shift work
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Income, employment and wealth

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

High school equivalency credentials

Offer programs to help individuals without a high school diploma or its equivalent achieve a high school equivalency credential
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Education
  • Income, employment and wealth

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

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