Strategies

Lend materials, offer gathering space, and provide educational, civic, and social programming; open to the community and publicly funded

Make clinician, hospital, clinic, long-term care facility, and insurance plan performance on health care quality measures publicly available via report cards, reporting websites, or similar tools

Introduce or expand transportation options that are available to the public and run on a scheduled timetable (e.g., buses, trains, ferries, rapid transit, etc.)

Use ready-made or home constructed barrel systems to collect and store rainwater from rooftops that would otherwise flow to storm drains and streams

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

Transition families and individuals experiencing homelessness into permanent housing quickly, often with supports such as short-term financial assistance, case management, landlord negotiations, etc.

Partner with doctors, nurse practitioners, and other medical professionals to incorporate literacy support into regular well-child visits, especially in lower income communities

Offer opportunities for adults to play athletic games such as soccer, softball, kickball, basketball, etc. at beginner, intermediate, and competitive levels

Promote walking and biking to school through education, incentives, and environmental changes; often called SRTS

Support programs to provide students with a nutritious breakfast in the cafeteria, from grab and go carts in hallways, or in classrooms

Provide sealants, fluoride treatment, screening, and other preventive dental care on school grounds via partnerships with dental professionals

Establish designated areas where students can garden with guidance, often with nutrition and food preparation lessons and opportunities for taste tasting and hands-on learning

Promote abstinence from sexual activity, generally only with mention of condoms and birth control to highlight failure rates

Provide health care services on school premises to attending elementary, middle, and high school students; physical and mental health services provided by teams of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physicians

Provide youth with teen dating violence education that addresses healthy relationships, gender norms, relationship coercion, and violence in a school setting

Expand or enhance school-based physical education (PE) by lengthening existing classes, increasing physical activity during class, adding new PE classes, etc.

Address students’ disruptive and antisocial behavior by teaching self-awareness, emotional self-control, self-esteem, social problem solving, conflict resolution, team work, social skills, etc.

Provide students from public schools, from low income backgrounds, or who have a high risk of dropping out and their families with information about social services and health care supports; also called community resource or family and community liaisons

Provide incentives to trade in old cars or light duty trucks with low fuel efficiency and high emissions and buy new vehicles with higher efficiency and lower emissions; also called scrappage or vehicle early retirement programs

Encourage children to spend time away from TV and other stationary screen media, often as part of a multi-faceted effort to increase physical activity and improve nutrition

Use counseling, informational materials, etc. to inform smokers and non-smokers of the harms of secondhand smoke and encourage them to implement home smoking bans

Provide industry-focused education and job training based on the needs of regional employers within specific sectors

Create contracts that support community access to existing public, private, or nonprofit facilities before or after business hours; also called joint use, open use, or community use agreements

Support individual and group use of internet-based tools to receive news, communicate or share information, collaborate on ideas, mobilize networks, and make collective decisions

Coordinate access to services across delivery systems and disciplinary boundaries (e.g., housing, disability, physical health, mental health, child welfare, workforce services, etc.)

Educate youth and college athletes, coaches, and parents about the severity of concussions in sports, proper prevention, detection, reporting, and treatment

Provide academic instruction to students during the summer, often along with enrichment activities such as art or outdoor activities

Provide short-term employment opportunities for youth, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds

Provide sterile injection equipment and often other treatment and referral services to people who inject drugs; also called needle or syringe exchange programs and needle syringe programs

Create designated tax districts that generate revenue to invest in affordable housing initiatives, blight remediation, and economic development efforts

Incorporate technology into classroom instruction via computer-assisted instruction programs, computer-managed learning programs, use of interactive white boards, etc.

Support school-, community-, and clinic-based teen pregnancy prevention programs such as comprehensive sex education, HIV/STI prevention and youth development efforts, service learning, etc.

Encourage participants to quit using tobacco by a set date or during a specific time period and give successful participants a chance to win financial rewards or other prizes; often called Quit & Win contests

Establish time-limited, subsidized, paid jobs to help individuals with barriers to employment transition to unsubsidized employment

Support and strengthen traumatized and distressed residents and communities and address effects of community trauma (e.g., poverty, violence, structural racism, etc.) via a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder, and multilevel approach

Support a trauma-informed juvenile justice system to recognize and respond to trauma’s impact on youth through staff training and broad adoption of trauma-informed practices and policies

Place youth with mental, emotional, and behavioral health challenges in foster families that provide a structured, nurturing, therapeutic environment; also called Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC)

Place severely and chronically delinquent youth in foster families that are trained in structured behavior management and connected to TFCO program staff; formerly called Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care

Deliver a curriculum-based program that helps all students learn to recognize warning signs of suicide in themselves and others in a school setting

Support food-producing and income-earning activities in urban environments (e.g., edible landscapes, front yard or rooftop gardens, window farming, hydroponics, livestock, etc.)

Implement anti-idling policies and awareness campaigns to reduce engine idling for passenger vehicles, school buses, and/or equipment and truck fleets

Arrange active transportation with a fixed route, designated stops, and pick up times when children can walk to school with adult chaperones

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

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

Provide participating high school students with professional opportunities that combine academic and on-the-job training or mentorship

Teach students attitudes, skills, knowledge, and behavior needed to participate in and contribute to a democracy

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.

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

Allow residents to keep chickens and bees within city or municipality limits