A public health planner must allocate funding to reduce population-level osteoporosis risk over the next 50 years. Which integrated approach synthesizes the strongest evidence-based elements for long-term impact?

• A. Allocate funds exclusively to distribute free calcium pills to seniors, because improving intake late in life is sufficient to reverse decades of bone loss and no other interventions are necessary.
• B. Provide universal long-term hormone replacement therapy to all postmenopausal women in the population without screening or counseling about risks and benefits because estrogen is the single most powerful agent to prevent fractures.
• C. Invest in school nutrition programs to ensure adequate calcium and vitamin D for children and adolescents, fund community-based resistance/weight-bearing exercise programs across the lifespan, and support screening plus targeted pharmacotherapy for high-risk older adults.
• D. Focus spending solely on research to develop gene therapies for osteoporosis and delay any community-level nutritional or exercise programs until the gene therapy is available.

Answer: (C)