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Mailman School
of Public Health
Columbia University
722 West 168th Street,
8th Floor
New York, NY 10032
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Environmental and Policy Change The field of public health has laid the foundation for a range of promising prevention strategies that seek to change high risk behaviors by targeting the broader environment in which individuals live. These strategies differ from many of the more commonly known preventive interventions, which tend to focus on changing the individual's behavior. The increasing national interest in utilizing environmental prevention approaches is, in some ways, quite understandable. If we focus prevention efforts on the individual, we are inevitably trying to change behavior one person at a time. If our efforts are focused on the environment, or on policies that impact the environment, whole communities can benefit from their impact. The range of environmental prevention strategies currently being tested nationally has increased dramatically over the past ten years, as empirical evidence suggests that they are equally or more effective than individually-focused prevention strategies in changing high risk behaviors. Environmental and policy focused strategies that impact alcohol and tobacco use have received significant attention within the prevention research community. There is also a growing body of work being conducted to explore the effectiveness of environmental and policy focused strategies to impact a broad range of high risk issues, including gun violence, drug use, and HIV prevention. Click below for information on additional resources and strategies.
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Disclaimer Free To Grow is a national program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. |