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Supporting a Movement for Health and Health Equity is the summary of a workshop convened in December 2013 by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities and the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement to explore the lessons that may be gleaned from social movements, both those that are health-related and those that are not primarily focused on health. Participants and presenters focused on elements identified from the history and sociology of social change movements and how such elements can be applied to present-day efforts nationally and across communities to improve the chances for long, healthy lives for all. The idea of movements and movement building is inextricably linked with the history of public health. Historically, most movements - including, for example, those for safer working conditions, for clean water, and for safe food - have emerged from the sustained efforts of many different groups of individuals, which were often organized in order to protest and advocate for changes in the name of such values as fairness and human rights. The purpose of the workshop was to have a conversation about how to support the fragments of health movements that roundtable members believed they could see occurring in society and in the health field. Recent reports from the National Academies have highlighted evidence that the United States gets poor value on its extraordinary investments in health - in particular, on its investments in health care - as American life expectancy lags behind that of other wealthy nations. As a result, many individuals and organizations, including the Healthy People 2020 initiative, have called for better health and longer lives.

Many of the elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect in 2014, and with the establishment of many new rules and regulations, there will continue to be significant changes to the United States health care system. It is not clear what impact these changes will have on medical and public health preparedness programs around the country. Although there has been tremendous progress since 2005 and Hurricane Katrina, there is still a long way to go to ensure the health security of the Country. There is a commonly held notion that preparedness is separate and distinct from everyday operations, and that it only affects emergency departments. But time and time again, catastrophic events challenge the entire health care system, from acute care and emergency medical services down to the public health and community clinic level, and the lack of preparedness of one part of the system places preventable stress on other components. The implementation of the ACA provides the opportunity to consider how to incorporate preparedness into all aspects of the health care system. The Impacts of the Affordable Care Act on Preparedness Resources and Programs is the summary of a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events in November 2013 to discuss how changes to the health system as a result of the ACA might impact medical and public health preparedness programs across the nation. This report discusses challenges and benefits of the Affordable Care Act to disaster preparedness and response efforts around the country and considers how changes to payment and reimbursement models will present opportunities and challenges to strengthen disaster preparedness and response capacities.

Workshop held October 9-10, 2013; Washington, DC (page 85).

For the first time in decades, promising news has emerged regarding efforts to curb the obesity crisis in the United States. Obesity rates have fallen among low-income children in 18 states, the prevalence of obesity has plateaued among girls, regardless of ethnicity, and targeted efforts in states such as Massachusetts have demonstrably reduced the prevalence of obesity among children. Although the reasons for this turnaround are as complex and multifaceted as the reasons for the dramatic rise in obesity rates in recent decades, interventions to improve nutrition and increase physical activity are almost certainly major contributors. Yet major problems remain. Diseases associated with obesity continue to incur substantial costs and cause widespread human suffering. Moreover, substantial disparities in obesity rates exist among population groups, and in some cases these disparities are widening. Some groups and regions are continuing to experience increases in obesity rates, and the prevalence of severe obesity is continuing to rise. The Current State of Obesity Solutions in the United States is the summary of a workshop convened in January 2014 by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Obesity Solutions to foster an ongoing dialogue on critical and emerging implementation, policy, and research issues to accelerate progress in obesity prevention and care. Representatives of public health, health care, government, the food industry, education, philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and academia met to discuss interventions designed to prevent and treat obesity. The workshop focused on early care and education, schools, worksites, health care institutions, communities and states, the federal government, and business and industry. For each of these groups, this report provides an overview of current efforts to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and reduce disparities among populations.

"Drug development can be time-consuming and expensive. Recent estimates suggest that, on average, it takes 10 years and at least $1 billion to bring a drug to market. Given the time and expense of developing drugs de novo, pharmaceutical companies have become increasingly interested in finding new uses for existing drugs--a process referred to as drug repurposing or repositioning. Historically, drug repurposing has been largely an unintentional, serendipitous process that took place when a drug was found to have an offtarget effect or a previously unrecognized on-target effect that could be used for identifying a new indication. Perhaps the most recognizable example of such a successful repositioning effort is sildenafil. Originally developed as an anti-hypertensive, sildenafil, marketed as Viagra and under other trade names, has been repurposed for the treatment of erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Viagra generated more than $2 billion worldwide in 2012 and has recently been studied for the treatment of heart failure. Given the widespread interest in drug repurposing, the Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health of the Institute of Medicine hosted a workshop on June 24, 2013, in Washington, DC, to assess the current landscape of drug repurposing activities in industry, academia, and government. Stakeholders, including government officials, pharmaceutical company representatives, academic researchers, regulators, funders, and patients, were invited to present their perspectives and to participate in workshop discussions. Drug Repurposing and Repositioning is the summary of that workshop. This report examines enabling tools and technology for drug repurposing; evaluates the business models and economic incentives for pursuing a repurposing approach; and discusses how genomic and genetic research could be positioned to better enable a drug repurposing paradigm"--Publisher's description. --

"On November 7-8, 2013, the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine held a workshop to discuss approaches related to identifying and reducing potential environmental public health risks to new and existing industrial chemicals present in society. Industrial chemicals include chemicals used in industrial processes or commercial products, not including those found in food, pesticides, or pharmaceuticals. Identifying and Reducing Environmental Health Risks of Chemicals in Our Society is a summary and synthesis of the presentations and discussions that took place during the two days of the workshop. The workshop examined successes and areas for improvement within current regulatory programs for assessing industrial chemical safety, frameworks for chemical prioritization to inform targeted testing and risk management strategies, concepts of sustainability and green chemistry that support the design and use of safer alternatives, and efforts to reduce the risk of chemicals in our society."--Publisher's description.

"Health is influenced by a wide range of factors, many of which fall outside of the health care delivery sector. These determinants of health include, for example, the characteristics of how people live, work, learn, and play. Decision and policy making in areas such as transportation, housing, and education at different levels of government, and in the private sector, can have far-reaching impacts on health. Throughout the United States there has been increasing dialogue on incorporating a health perspective into policies, programs, and projects outside the health field. Applying a Health Lens to Decision Making in Non-Health Sectors is the summary of a workshop convened in September 2013 by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Population Health Improvement to foster cross-sectoral dialogue and consider the opportunities for and barriers to improving the conditions for health in the course of achieving other societal objectives (e.g., economic development, efficient public transit). The roundtable engaged members, outside experts, and stakeholders on three core issues: supporting fruitful interaction between primary care and public health; strengthening governmental public health; and exploring community action in transforming the conditions that influence the public's health. This report is a discussion of health in all policies approaches to promote consideration for potential health effects in policy making in many relevant domains, such as education, transportation, and housing."--

"Understanding the Connections Between Coastal Waters and Ocean Ecosystem Services and Human Health discusses the connection of ecosystem services and human health. This report looks at the state of the science of the role of oceans in ensuring human health and identifies gaps and opportunities for future research. The report summarizes a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine. Participants discussed coastal waters and ocean ecosystem services in the United States in an effort to understand impacts on human health. Understanding the Connections Between Coastal Waters and Ocean Ecosystem Services and Human Health focuses on key linkages by discussing the ecosystem services provided by coastal waterways and oceans that are essential for human health and well-being; examining the major stressors that affect the ability of coastal waterways and ocean systems to provide essential services; and considering key factors that can enhance the resiliency of these systems."--

"In 2011 the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health initiative identified priorities that have the potential to make a significant impact on the lives of people with mental, neurological, and substance use disorders. Reduction of the cost and improvement of the supply of effective medicines was highlighted as one of the top five challenges. For low- and middle-income countries, improving access to appropriate essential medicines can be a tremendous challenge and a critical barrier to scaling up quality care for mental, neurological, and substance use disorders. Reduction of cost and improvement of the supply of effective medicines has the potential to significantly impact the lives of patients with these disorders. Improving Access to Essential Medicines for Mental, Neurological, and Substance Use Disorders in Sub-Saharan Africa is the summary of a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine Neuroscience Forum in January 2014 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to discuss opportunities for achieving long-term affordable access to medicines for these disorders. This report examines challenges and opportunities for improving access to essential medicines in four critical areas: demand, selection, supply chains, and financing and pricing. The report also discusses successful activities that increase access to essential medicines both within Sub-Saharan Africa and in other developing countries, and considers the role of governments, nongovernmental organizations, and private groups in procurement of essential medicines for mental, neurological, and substance use disorders."--

"Health literacy is the degree to which individuals can obtain, process, and understand the basic health information and services they need to make appropriate health decisions. Nearly half of all American adults - 90 million people - have inadequate health literacy to navigate the health care system. Implications of Health Literacy for Public Health is the summary of a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy in November 2013 that focused on the implications of health literacy for the mission and essential services of public health. The workshop featured the presentation of a commissioned paper on health literacy activities under way in public health organizations. Other presentations examined the implications of health literacy for the mission and essential services of public health, for example, community health and safety, disease prevention, disaster management, or health communication. This report includes the commissioned paper and summaries of the workshop presentations"--

The twentieth century witnessed an era of unprecedented, large-scale, anthropogenic changes to the natural environment. Understanding how environmental factors directly and indirectly affect the emergence and spread of infectious disease has assumed global importance for life on this planet. While the causal links between environmental change and disease emergence are complex, progress in understanding these links, as well as how their impacts may vary across space and time, will require transdisciplinary, transnational, collaborative research. This research may draw upon the expertise, tools, and approaches from a variety of disciplines. Such research may inform improvements in global readiness and capacity for surveillance, detection, and response to emerging microbial threats to plant, animal, and human health. The Influence of Global Environmental Change on Infectious Disease Dynamics is the summary of a workshop hosted by the Institute of Medicine Forum on Microbial Threats in September 2013 to explore the scientific and policy implications of the impacts of global environmental change on infectious disease emergence, establishment, and spread. This report examines the observed and potential influence of environmental factors, acting both individually and in synergy, on infectious disease dynamics. The report considers a range of approaches to improve global readiness and capacity for surveillance, detection, and response to emerging microbial threats to plant, animal, and human health in the face of ongoing global environmental change.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) was created in 2005 by The California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act (Proposition 71) to distribute $3 billion in state funds for stem cell research. The passage of Proposition 71 by the voters of California occurred at a time when federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells was uncertain, given the ethical questions raised by such research. During its initial period of operations, CIRM has successfully and thoughtfully provided more than $1.3 billion in awards to 59 California institutions, consistent with its stated mission. As it transitions to a broadened portfolio of grants to stimulate progress toward its translational goals, the Institute should obtain cohesive, longitudinal, and integrated advice; restructure its grant application review process; and enhance industry epresentation in aspects of its operations. CIRM's unique governance structure, while seful in its initial stages, might diminish its effectiveness moving forward. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine: Science, Governance, and the Pursuit of Cures recommends specific steps to enhance CIRM's organization and management, as well as its scientific policies and processes, as it transitions to the critical next stages of its research and development program.

Today's physician education system produces trained doctors with strong scientific underpinnings in biological and physical sciences as well as supervised practical experience in delivering care. Significant financial public support underlies the graduate-level training of the nation's physicians. Two federal programs--Medicare and Medicaid--distribute billions each year to support teaching hospitals and other training sites that provide graduate medical education.Graduate Medical Education That Meets the Nation's Health Needs is an independent review of the goals, governance, and financing of the graduate medical education system. This report focuses on the extent to which the current system supports or creates barriers to producing a physician workforce ready to provide high-quality, patient-centered, and affordable health care and identifies opportunities to maximize the leverage of federal funding toward these goals. Graduate Medical Education examines the residency pipeline, geographic distribution of generalist and specialist clinicians, types of training sites, and roles of teaching and academic health centers.The recommendations of Graduate Medical Education will contribute to the production of a better prepared physician workforce, innovative graduate medical education programs, transparency and accountability in programs, and stronger planning and oversight of the use of public funds to support training. Teaching hospitals, funders, policy makers, institutions, and health care organizations will use this report as a resource to assess and improve the graduate medical education system in the United States.

Rapid advances in technology have lowered the cost of sequencing an individual's genome from the several billion dollars that it cost a decade ago to just a few thousand dollars today and have correspondingly greatly expanded the use of genomic information in medicine. Because of the lack of evidence available for assessing variants, evaluation bodies have made only a few recommendations for the use of genetic tests in health care. For example, organizations, such as the Evaluation of Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention working group, have sought to set standards for the kinds of evaluations needed to make population-level health decisions. However, due to insufficient evidence, it has been challenging to recommend the use of a genetic test. An additional challenge to using large-scale sequencing in the clinic is that it may uncover "secondary," or "incidental," findings - genetic variants that have been associated with a disease but that are not necessarily related to the conditions that led to the decision to use genomic testing. Furthermore, as more genetic variants are associated with diseases, new information becomes available about genomic tests performed previously, which raises issues about how and whether to return this information to physicians and patients and also about who is responsible for the information. To help develop a better understanding of how genomic information is used for healthcare decision making, the Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health of the Institute of Medicine held a workshop in Washington, DC in February 2014. Stakeholders, including clinicians, researchers, patients, and government officials, discussed the issues related to the use of genomic information in medical practice. Assessing Genomic Sequencing Information for Health Care Decision Making is the summary of that workshop. This report compares and contrasts evidence evaluation processes for different clinical indications and discusses key challenges in the evidence evaluation process.

In the nearly 40 years since implementation of federal regulations governing the protection of human participants in research, the number of clinical studies has grown exponentially. These studies have become more complex, with multisite trials now common, and there is increasing use of archived biospecimens and related data, including genomics data. In addition, growing emphasis on targeted cancer therapies requires greater collaboration and sharing of research data to ensure that rare patient subsets are adequately represented. Electronic records enable more extensive data collection and mining, but also raise concerns about the potential for inappropriate or unauthorized use of data, bringing patient protections into a new landscape. There are also long-standing concerns about the processes and forms used to obtain informed consent from patients participating in clinical studies. These changes and challenges raise new ethical and practical questions for the oversight of clinical studies, and for protecting patients and their health information in an efficient manner that does not compromise the progress of biomedical research. Contemporary Issues for Protecting Patients in Cancer Research is the summary of a workshop convened by the National Cancer Policy Forum of the Institute of Medicine in February 2014 to explore contemporary issues in human subjects protections as they pertain to cancer research, with the goal of identifying potential relevant policy actions. Clinical researchers, government officials, members of Institutional Review Boards, and patient advocates met to discuss clinical cancer research and oversight. This report examines current regulatory provisions that may not adequately protect patients or may be hindering research, and discusses potential strategies and actions to address those challenges.

Every year, public and private funders spend many billions of dollars on large-scale, complex, multi-national health initiatives. The only way to know whether these initiatives are achieving their objectives is through evaluations that examine the links between program activities and desired outcomes. Investments in such evaluations, which, like the initiatives being evaluated, are carried out in some of the world's most challenging settings, are a relatively new phenomenon. In the last five years, evaluations have been conducted to determine the effects of some of the world's largest and most complex multi-national health initiatives. Evaluation Design for Complex Global Initiatives is the summary of a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine in January 2014 to explore these recent evaluation experiences and to consider the lessons learned from how these evaluations were designed, carried out, and used. The workshop brought together more than 100 evaluators, researchers in the field of evaluation science, staff involved in implementing large-scale health programs, local stakeholders in the countries where the initiatives are carried out, policy makers involved in the initiatives, representatives of donor organizations, and others to derive lessons learned from past large-scale evaluations and to discuss how to apply these lessons to future evaluations. This report discusses transferable insights gained across the spectrum of choosing the evaluator, framing the evaluation, designing the evaluation, gathering and analyzing data, synthesizing findings and recommendations, and communicating key messages. The report also explores the relative benefits and limitations of different quantitative and qualitative approaches within the mixed methods designs used for these complex and costly evaluations.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the signature injuries of the U.S. conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it affects veterans of all eras. It is estimated that 7-20% of service members and veterans who served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom may have the disorder. PTSD is characterized by a combination of mental health symptoms - re-experiencing of a traumatic event, avoidance of trauma-associated stimuli, adverse alterations in thoughts and mood, and hyperarousal - that last at least 1 month and impair functioning. PTSD can be lifelong and pervade all aspects of a service member's or veteran's life, including mental and physical health, family and social relationships, and employment. It is often concurrent with other health problems, such as depression, traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, substance abuse disorder, and intimate partner violence. The Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provide a spectrum of programs and services to screen for, diagnose, treat for, and rehabilitate service members and veterans who have or are at risk for PTSD. The 2010 National Defense Authorization Act asked the Institute of Medicine to assess those PTSD programs and services in two phases. The Phase 1 study, Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Military and Veteran Populations: Initial Assessment, focused on data gathering. Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Military and Veteran Populations Final Assessment is the report of the second phase of the study. This report analyzes the data received in Phase 1 specifically to determine the rates of success for each program or method. Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Military and Veteran Populations Final Assessment considers what a successful PTSD management system is and whether and how such a system is being implemented by DoD and VA. This includes an assessment of what care is given and to whom, how effectiveness is measured, what types of mental health care providers are available, what influences whether a service member or veteran seeks care, and what are the costs associated with that care. This report focuses on the opportunities and challenges that DoD and VA face in developing, implementing, and evaluating services and programs in the context of achieving a high-performing system to care for service members and veterans who have PTSD. The report also identifies where gaps or new emphases might be addressed to improve prevention of, screening for, diagnosis of, and treatment and rehabilitation for the disorder. The findings and recommendations of Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Military and Veteran Populations: Final Assessment will encourage DoD and VA to increase their efforts in moving toward a high-performing, comprehensive, integrated PTSD management strategy that addresses the needs of current and future service members, veterans, and their families.

"Workshop I: Interprofessional Education for Collaboration: Learning How to Improve Health from Interprofessional Models Across the Continuum of Education to Practice, August 29-30, 2012, The Keck Center of The National Academies"--Page 97.

"Substantial empirical evidence of the contribution of social and behavioral factors to functional status and the onset and progression of disease has accumulated over the past few decades. Electronic health records (EHRs) provide crucial information to providers treating individual patients, to health systems, including public health officials, about the health of populations, and to researchers about the determinants of health and the effectiveness of treatment. Inclusion of social and behavioral health domains in EHRs is vital to all three uses. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act place new importance on the widespread adoption and meaningful use of EHRs. "Meaningful use" in a health information technology context refers to the use of EHRs and related technology within a health care organization to achieve specified objectives. Achieving meaningful use also helps determine whether an organization can receive payments from the Medicare EHR Incentive Program or the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. Capturing Social and Behavioral Domains in Electronic Health Records is the first phase of a two-phase study to identify domains and measures that capture the social determinants of health to inform the development of recommendations for meaningful use of EHRs. This report identifies specific domains to be considered by the Office of the National Coordinator, specifies criteria that should be used in deciding which domains should be included, identifies core social and behavioral domains to be included in all EHRs, and identifies any domains that should be included for specific populations or settings defined by age, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, disease, or other characteristics."--

"Since its inception, the U.S. human spaceflight program has grown from launching a single man into orbit to an ongoing space presence involving numerous crewmembers. As the U.S. space program evolves, propelled in part by increasing international and commercial collaborations, long duration or exploration spaceflights - such as extended stays on the International Space Station or missions to Mars - become more realistic. These types of missions will likely expose crews to levels of known risk that are beyond those allowed by current health standards, as well as to a range of risks that are poorly characterized, uncertain, and perhaps unforeseeable. As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Congress discuss the next generation of NASA's missions and the U.S. role in international space efforts, it is important to understand the ethical factors that drive decision making about health standards and mission design for NASA activities. NASA asked the Institute of Medicine to outline the ethics principles and practices that should guide the agency's decision making for future long duration or exploration missions that fail to meet existing health standards. Health Standards for Long Duration and Exploration Spaceflight identifies an ethics framework, which builds on the work of NASA and others, and presents a set of recommendations for ethically assessing and responding to the challenges associated with health standards for long duration and exploration spaceflight. As technologies improve and longer and more distant spaceflight becomes feasible, NASA and its international and commercial partners will continue to face complex decisions about risk acceptability. This report provides a roadmap for ethically assessing and responding to the challenges associated with NASA's health standards for long duration and exploration missions. Establishing and maintaining a firmly grounded ethics framework for this inherently risky activity is essential to guide NASA's decisions today and to create a strong foundation for decisions about future challenges and opportunities"--

"Although health literacy is commonly defined as an individual trait, it does not depend on the skills of individuals alone. Health literacy is the product of the interaction between individuals' capacities and the health literacy-related demands and complexities of the health care system. Specifically, the ability to understand, evaluate, and use numbers is important to making informed health care choices. Health Literacy and Numeracy is the summary of a workshop convened by The Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Health Literacy in July 2013 to discuss topics related to numeracy, including the effects of ill health on cognitive capacity, issues with communication of health information to the public, and communicating numeric information for decision making. This report includes a paper commissioned by the Roundtable, "Numeracy and the Affordable Care Act: Opportunities and Challenges," that discusses research findings about people's numeracy skill levels; the kinds of numeracy skills that are needed to select a health plan, choose treatments, and understand medication instructions; and how providers should communicate with those with low numeracy skills. The paper was featured in the workshop and served as the basis of discussion."--

"Scientific advances such as the sequencing of the human genome have created great promise for improving human health by providing a greater understanding of disease biology and enabling the development of new drugs, diagnostics, and preventive services. However, the translation of research advances into clinical applications has so far been slower than anticipated. This is due in part to the complexity of the underlying biology as well as the cost and time it takes to develop a product. Pharmaceutical companies are adapting their business models to this new reality for product development by placing increasing emphasis on leveraging alliances, joint development efforts, early-phase research partnerships, and public-private partnerships. These collaborative efforts make it possible to identify new drug targets, enhance the understanding of the underlying basis of disease, discover novel indications for the use of already approved products, and develop biomarkers for disease outcomes or directed drug use. While the potential benefits of collaboration are significant, the fact that the relationships among development partners are often financial means that it is vital to ensure trust by identifying, disclosing, and managing any potential sources of conflict that could create bias in the research being performed together."Conflict of Interest and Medical Innovation" is the summary of a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health in June 2013 to explore the appropriate balance between identifying and managing conflicts of interest and advancing medical innovation. A wide range of stakeholders, including government officials, pharmaceutical company representatives, academic administrators and researchers, health care providers, medical ethicists, patient advocates, and consumers, were invited to present their perspectives and participate in discussions during the workshop. This report focuses on current conflict of interest policies and their effect on medical innovation in an effort to identify best practices and potential solutions for facilitating innovation while still ensuring scientific integrity and public trust"--

"More than 2 decades have passed since the 1990-1991 conflict in the Persian Gulf. During the intervening years, many Gulf War veterans have experienced various unexplained symptoms that many associate with service in the Gulf region, but no specific exposure has been definitively associated with symptoms. Numerous researchers have described the pattern of signs and symptoms found in deployed Gulf War veterans and noted that they report unexplained symptoms at higher rates than nondeployed veterans or veterans deployed elsewhere during the same period. Gulf War veterans have consistently shown a higher level of morbidity than the nondeployed, in some cases with severe and debilitating consequences. However, efforts to define a unique illness or syndrome in Gulf War veterans have failed, as have attempts to develop a uniformly accepted case definition. Chronic Multisymptom Illness in Gulf War Veterans is a comprehensive review of the available scientific and medical literature regarding symptoms for chronic multisymptom illness (CMI) among the 1991 Gulf War Veterans. This report evaluates and summarizes the literature in an effort to identify appropriate terminology to use in referring to CMI in Gulf War Veterans. While the report does not recommend one specific case definition over another, Chronic Multisymptom Illness in Gulf War Veterans does recommend the consideration of two case definitions on the basis of their concordance with the evidence and their ability to identify specific symptoms commonly reported by Gulf War veterans. This report recommends that the Department of Veterans Affairs use the term Gulf War illness rather than CMI. The report recommends that that the Department of Veterans Affairs, to the extent possible, systematically assess existing data to identify additional features of Gulf War illness, such as onset, duration, severity, frequency of symptoms, and exclusionary criteria to produce a more robust case definition" -- Provided by publisher.

"America's research universities have undergone striking change in recent decades, as have many aspects of the society that surrounds them. This change has important implications for the heart of every university: the faculty. To sustain their high level of intellectual excellence and their success in preparing young people for the various roles they will play in society, universities need to be aware of how evolving conditions affect their ability to attract the most qualified people and to maximize their effectiveness as teachers and researchers. Gender roles, family life, the demographic makeup of the nation and the faculty, and the economic stability of higher education all have shifted dramatically over the past generation. In addition, strong current trends in technology, funding, and demographics suggest that change will continue and perhaps even accelerate in academe in the years to come. One central element of academic life has remained essentially unchanged for generations, however: the formal structure of the professorial career. Developed in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to suit circumstances quite different from today's, and based on traditions going back even earlier, this customary career path is now a source of strain for both the individuals pursuing it and the institutions where they work. The Arc of the Academic Research Career is the summary of a workshop convened by The Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy in September 2013 to examine major points of strain in academic research careers from the point of view of both the faculty members and the institutions. National experts from a variety of disciplines and institutions discussed practices and strategies already in use on various campuses and identified issues as yet not effectively addressed. This workshop summary addresses the challenges universities face, from nurturing the talent of future faculty members to managing their progress through all the stages of their careers to finding the best use of their skills as their work winds down."--Publisher's description.

"Being deployed to a war zone can result in numerous adverse psychological health conditions. It is well documented in the literature that there are high rates of psychological disorders among military personnel serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq as well as among the service members' families. For service members' families, the degree of hardship and negative consequences rises with the amount of the service members' exposure to traumatic or life-altering experiences. Adult and child members of the families of service members who experience wartime deployments have been found to be at increased risk for symptoms of psychological disorders and to be more likely to use mental health services. In an effort to provide early recognition and early intervention that meet the psychological health needs of service members and their families, DOD currently screens for many of these conditions at numerous points during the military life cycle, and it is implementing structural interventions that support the improved integration of military line personnel, non-medical caregivers, and clinicians, such as RESPECT-Mil (Re-engineering Systems of Primary Care Treatment in the Military), embedded mental health providers, and the Patient-Centered Medical Home. Preventing Psychological Disorders in Service Members and Their Families evaluates risk and protective factors in military and family populations and suggests that prevention strategies are needed at multiple levels - individual, interpersonal, institutional, community, and societal - in order to address the influence that these factors have on psychological health. This report reviews and critiques reintegration programs and prevention strategies for PTSD, depression, recovery support, and prevention of substance abuse, suicide, and interpersonal violence"--Publisher's description.

Since the United States began combat operations in Afghanistan in October 2001 and then in Iraq in March 2003, the numbers of US soldiers killed exceed 6,700 and of US soldiers wounded 50,500. Although all wars since World War I have involved the use of explosives by the enemy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq differ from previous wars in which the United States has been involved because of the enemy's use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The use of IEDs has led to an injury landscape different from that in prior US wars. The signature injury of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is blast injury. Numerous US soldiers have returned home with devastating blast injuries and they continue to experience many challenges in readjusting to civilian life. Gulf War and Health, Volume 9 is an assessment of the relevant scientific information and draws conclusions regarding the strength of the evidence of an association between exposure to blast and health effects. The report also includes recommendations for research most likely to provide VA with knowledge that can be used to inform decisions on how to prevent blast injuries, how to diagnose them effectively, and how to manage, treat, and rehabilitate victims of battlefield traumas in the immediate aftermath of a blast and in the long term.

Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.

"The Food Forum convened a public workshop on February 22-23, 2012, to explore current and emerging knowledge of the human microbiome, its role in human health, its interaction with the diet, and the translation of new research findings into tools and products that improve the nutritional quality of the food supply. The Human Microbiome, Diet, and Health: Workshop Summary summarizes the presentations and discussions that took place during the workshop. Over the two day workshop, several themes covered included: 1) The microbiome is integral to human physiology, health, and disease; 2) The microbiome is arguably the most intimate connection that humans have with their external environment, mostly through diet; 3) Given the emerging nature of research on the microbiome, some important methodology issues might still have to be resolved with respect to undersampling and a lack of causal and mechanistic studies; 4) Dietary interventions intended to have an impact on host biology via their impact on the microbiome are being developed, and the market for these products is seeing tremendous success. However, the current regulatory framework poses challenges to industry interest and investment"--Publisher's description.

Based on a workshop held March 17, 2008 in Washington, DC.

Environmental health decision making can be a complex undertaking, as there is the need to navigate and find balance among three core elements: science, policy, and the needs of the American public. Policy makers often grapple with how to make appropriate decisions when the research is uncertain. The challenge for the policy maker is to make the right decision with the best available data in a transparent process. The Environmental Health Sciences Decision Making workshop, the first in a series, was convened to inform the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine on emerging issues in risk management, "weight of evidence," and ethics that influence environmental health decision making. The workshop, summarized in this volume, included an overview of the principles underlying decision making, the role of evidence and challenges for vulnerable populations, and ethical issues of conflict of interest, scientific integrity, and transparency. The workshop engaged science interest groups, industry, government, and the academic sector.