Strategies

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

37 Strategies
Clear all

Internet-based tobacco cessation interventions

Use websites, computer programs, and other electronic means to provide information, strategies, or behavioral support to tobacco users who want to quit, sometimes with counseling or pharmacotherapy

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Tobacco Use

Lead paint abatement programs

Eliminate lead-based paint and contaminated dust by removing or encapsulating lead paint, or removing lead painted fixtures and surfaces

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Housing and Transit

Mass media campaigns against tobacco use

Use broad media-based efforts to educate large groups of current and potential tobacco users about the dangers of tobacco use

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Tobacco Use

No Excuses charter school model

Focus heavily on reading and math achievement, enforce high behavioral expectations through a formal discipline system, lengthen instructional time, and increase feedback on teacher performance

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Education

Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP)

Provide home visiting services to low income, first time mothers and their babies, starting during pregnancy and continuing through a child’s second birthday

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Family and Social Support

Nutrient management plans

Support site-specific plans for crop production that match nutrient applications to crop needs, typically with agricultural best management practices

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Air and Water Quality

Participatory budgeting

Engage community members to determine how public budgets are spent, ideally to improve neighborhood conditions and reduce inequality.

Evidence Rating:
Mixed Evidence
  • Family and Social Support

Permeable pavement projects

Use pervious concrete, porous asphalt, permeable interlocking pavers, open-jointed blocks or cells, or other permeable pavement in individual or commercial development efforts; also called porous or pervious pavement

Evidence Rating:
Scientifically Supported
  • Air and Water Quality

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
  • Education

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
  • Air and Water Quality