Strategies

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

117 Strategies matching mental health

Patient shared decision making

Support joint decision making between health care practitioners and patients through shared decision making (SDM); part of patient-centered care
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices
  • Worldviews, culture and norms

Point-of-decision prompts for physical activity

Place motivational signs on or near stairwells, elevators, and escalators that encourage individuals to use stairs
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Diet and exercise

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Tier 1

Teach positively stated behavior expectations to all students, often reinforced with prizes or privileges and supported with coaching and data
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Education

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Preconception education interventions

Provide birthing people with information about the risks and benefits of behaviors that affect their health before, during, and after pregnancy
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Clinical care

Preschool education programs

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social-emotional growth among children who are not old enough to enter formal schooling
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Education

Preschool programs with family support services

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social development among young children from families with low incomes, with supports such as home visiting or parental education
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Education
  • Safety and social support

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs)

Use databases, housed in state agencies, to track prescribing and dispensing of Schedule II, III, IV, and V drugs and other controlled substances
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Alcohol and drug use

Societal Rules

  • Institutional practices

Promise Academy Charter Schools

Create a school culture of high behavioral and academic expectations, with intense tutoring, increased teacher performance feedback, lengthened instruction time, and health care services
Evidence Rating:
Some Evidence

Community Conditions

  • Education

Public libraries for community building

Lend materials, offer gathering space, and provide educational, civic, and social programming; open to the community and publicly funded
Evidence Rating:
Expert Opinion

Community Conditions

  • Civic and community resources

Rain gardens & other bioretention systems

Establish bioretention systems (e.g., rain gardens, bioretention cells, green roofs, planter boxes, bioswales, etc.) to make city landscapes more permeable to help control stormwater
Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported

Community Conditions

  • Air, water and land
  • Climate