Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, are widespread, persistent chemicals that can move through soils, water, crops, livestock, and food systems. Agricultural lands may receive PFAS through pathways such as organic soil amendments, irrigation water, atmospheric deposition, or off-site industrial sources.
At the request of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an expert committee to provide an initial framework to guide USDA programs that deal directly with conservation on the land. The committee examined how PFAS move through agricultural landscapes, the scientific uncertainties involved, and the specific opportunities and constraints facing USDA's voluntary, nonregulatory conservation programs. Rather than offering prescriptive rules, the report is intentionally focused and practical, aimed at informing conservation planning and practice implementation.
PFAS in Agricultural Systems: Guidance for Conservation Programs at USDA highlights the challenge NRCS faces to deliver conservation solutions to producers and help them avoid or mitigate PFAS impacts despite limited data, incomplete toxicological understanding, and a lack of cost-effective mitigation or remediation technologies. The report suggests a framework built on the three phases of NRCS's conservation planning process and provides conclusions on opportunities regarding research, available data, and conservation practices and programs to address the impacts of PFAS on contaminated agricultural land.
Topics: Agriculture
When astronauts set foot on Mars, it will be one of humanity's greatest milestones. These first steps will be the result of decades of research, engineering, and imagination coming together, marking the beginning of a new era of discovery on another planet.
A Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars identifies the highest-priority science objectives for the first human mission to Mars, placing the search for life at the top of the list. The report examines scientific opportunities across Mars' geology, climate, water and CO₂ cycles, dust storms, and the environmental factors affecting human health and biological systems. It evaluates four potential multi-mission campaign concepts and outlines how crew-led science, robotic tools, drilling, and sample return can work together to advance understanding of Mars and prepare for sustained human exploration.
Topics: Space and Aeronautics
The U.S. maritime industry operates more than 10,500 vessels that transport essential energy, food, and goods across inland and ocean routes. Yet the sector faces a shrinking skilled workforce, declining academy enrollment, and a series of high-profile misconduct incidents that have exposed systemic issues of culture, supervision, and accountability.
Guided by the statement of task, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an ad hoc expert committee to assess and inform public policies governing alcohol possession and consumption by crew and other personnel aboard U.S. commercial vessels. The assessment considered personal safety, security, and welfare aboard vessels; the interplay of alcohol with other intoxicants; and the operational and workplace factors influencing misuse. The committee examined how alcohol and other substances contribute to abusive and dangerous behaviors; evaluated the effectiveness of federal regulations and vessel operator policies; and reviewed best practices for prevention, education, training, reporting, and accountability to foster a culture of safety.
Strengthening Alcohol Policies and Supporting Safety and Health in the Maritime Industry presents a comprehensive, evidence-informed strategy to address these interconnected issues. The report examines how alcohol and other substance use, workplace culture, leadership, and policy environments interact to shape safety and well-being at sea. The report offers actionable recommendations to modernize alcohol and drug policies, strengthen prevention and response to sexual misconduct, improve data collection, support mariner health and well-being, and reinforce leadership accountability. Together, these insights provide a roadmap for fostering safer, healthier, and more supportive conditions across the maritime workforce, helping position the industry for long-term strength and sustainability.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences | Transportation and Infrastructure | Conflict and Security Issues
In 2021, U.S. Navy personnel accidentally caused two releases of kerosene-based aviation fuel (jet propellant 5, or JP-5) from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility on O'ahu, Hawai'i, contaminating the drinking water supply for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and the Aliamanu Military Reservation. This exposure impacted up to 93,000 individuals, disrupting their lives and, for many, resulting in acute and ongoing health concerns.
The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Health Agency tasked the National Academies with convening an expert committee to make recommendations for monitoring the health of community members exposed. The resulting report was informed by exposed community members. It reviews and determines the strength of scientific evidence; reviews available exposure assessments and models: provides recommendations on clinical surveillance, testing, and care: and identifies research needs.
Topics: Environment and Environmental Studies
Offshore renewable energy is poised to play a significant role in the nation's clean energy future, particularly along the U.S. West Coast, where floating offshore wind technology is nearing commercial scale. At the same time, West Coast waters support long standing and diverse maritime activities, including commercial, Tribal, and recreational fisheries, domestic and international shipping, port operations, and U.S. Coast Guard missions. As offshore renewable energy advances, understanding how these uses may interact is essential for informed planning and comprehensive decision making.
Offshore Renewable Energy Development on the U.S. West Coast: Understanding Effects on Shipping, Fisheries, and Maritime Activities examines how offshore wind, wave, and tidal energy development may impact shipping routes, fisheries, port operations, and Coast Guard activities. Drawing on lessons from earlier offshore wind projects along the East Coast and current West Coast planning processes, this report identifies opportunities to proactively address potential conflicts, strengthen coordination, and support coexistence among ocean users.
The report concludes that the West Coast's early stage of offshore renewable energy development presents a critical opportunity to align clean energy goals with maritime safety, fisheries sustainability, Tribal rights, and economic vitality. Through early engagement, transparent spatial planning, and coordinated governance, offshore renewable energy can be developed in ways that reduce undue burdens on coastal communities and existing ocean users while delivering broad public benefits.
Topics: Energy and Energy Conservation | Environment and Environmental Studies | Agriculture | Transportation and Infrastructure
New advances in materials research are unlocking the potential of materials that learn. These materials - whether chemical networks that "decide" on their own, biohybrid materials, or tiny robot swarms - can have the ability to sense and adapt to new environments, perform intelligent tasks such as image recognition, and serve a structural purpose. These physical systems could consume less power and prove more resilient to damage than traditional electronic materials, making them particularly useful for extreme conditions such as high radiation or aqueous environments.
These proceedings summarize an October 2025 workshop that brought together researchers from across materials design, condensed matter physics, biomaterials, and industry to discuss new opportunities for materials that learn and ways to move towards the scalable design and manufacturing of these learning systems.
Topics: Engineering and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) supports U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness through fundamental research in neutron science. Work at NCNR advances pharmaceutical research, materials science, artificial intelligence, and fundamental physics and metrology. This 2025 assessment evaluates NCNR's technical programs, staffing, facilities, and effectiveness at meeting its mission. The report finds that NCNR staff and technical programs are extremely highly regarded, and additional resources are needed to maintain the facility's central role in neutron research in the United States and globally.
Topics: Engineering and Technology
Skills in computing and data are critical for students to thrive in a data-driven world. As advanced digital technologies evolve, the capacity to understand how data are produced, interpreted, and used is increasingly essential for civic participation, workforce readiness, and scientific advancement. While efforts to expand learning in these areas have grown, opportunities to participate are unevenly distributed and lack coherence across grades and subjects.
Data and Computing In K-12 Education: Foundational Competencies presents a coherent national framework for developing the foundational competencies students need in data and computing. This report identifies seven shared competencies that span disciplines and grade levels and examines how they align with existing STEM standards and classroom practice. It offers guidance for integrating data and computing into K-12 education in ways that strengthen core mathematics and science learning. Through addressing curriculum, teacher preparation, professional learning, technology access, assessment, and system-level coordination, the report calls for sustained, coordinated action to ensure that all students have meaningful opportunities to develop literacy in data and computing.
Topics: Computers and Information Technology | Education
As the polar regions undergo rapid change, planning for the Fifth International Polar Year (IPY5) offers a pivotal opportunity to shape global polar research and advance understanding. Exploring Key Research Topics for the Fifth International Polar Year: Proceedings of a Workshop captures expert dialogue on the scientific priorities, operational needs, and collaborative frameworks that could define this ambitious international effort.
The workshop convened leaders across disciplines to identify transformative research questions and monitoring strategies aligned with U.S. and international engagement in IPY5. Participants examined advances since the last IPY, including developments in remote sensing, autonomous observing systems, modeling, and machine learning. Discussions emphasized critical topics such as sea-level rise and grounding-zone processes, permafrost carbon feedbacks, ocean–ice interactions, marine ecosystems, space weather, wildfire, and the integration of atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land systems.
Beyond scientific priorities, the proceedings highlight the human and institutional capacity required for success. Contributors explored international coordination models, data interoperability, Indigenous leadership and data sovereignty, community-based observing networks, and pathways for early-career researchers to lead IPY-scale efforts. The result is a forward-looking roadmap that connects polar science to societal outcomes, from coastal risk management and infrastructure planning to environmental services, forecasting, and decision supporting the groundwork for a bold and collaborative IPY5 vision.
Topics: Earth Sciences | Policy for Science and Technology
Sickle cell disease (SCD), a group of inherited blood disorders affecting approximately 100,000 people in the U.S., is a life-long condition that impacts every organ system in the body. Symptoms and complications vary from mild to severe and can include acute and chronic pain, acute chest syndrome, stroke, and organ damage. The cumulative burden of SCD-related health effects can affect an individual's quality of life as well as their ability to participate in school and work. These factors impact how the Social Security Administration (SSA) determines whether applicants with SCD qualify for benefits.
The SSA tasked the National Academies with convening an expert committee to review the latest published scientific research and address best practices and patient experiences in the management and treatment of SCD. The resulting report, Sickle Cell Disease in Social Security Disability Evaluations, presents the committee's findings and conclusions including the importance of coordinated care and support for patients navigating the transition from pediatric to adult health care.
Topics: Health and Medicine
From advances in AI and blockchain to precision agriculture, statistical innovation drives progress and supports U.S. competitiveness across practically every field and sector. Frontiers of Statistics in Science and Engineering: 2035 and Beyond explores key developments in statistics, highlights critical future directions, and presents investment priorities to secure U.S. economic and technological advantage over the next decade.
Topics: Math, Chemistry, and Physics
Since 1944, the National Research Council (NRC) has published seven editions of the Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle. This reference has guided nutritionists and other professionals in academia and the cattle and feed industries in developing and implementing nutritional and feeding programs for beef cattle. The cattle industry has undergone considerable changes since the seventh revised edition was published in 2000 and some of the requirements and recommendations set forth at that time are no longer relevant or appropriate.
The eighth revised edition of the Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle builds on the previous editions. A great deal of new research has been published during the past 14 years and there is a large amount of new information for many nutrients. In addition to a thorough and current evaluation of the literature on the energy and nutrient requirements of beef in all stages of life, this volume includes new information about phosphorus and sulfur contents; a review of nutritional and feeding strategies to minimize nutrient losses in manure and reduce greenhouse gas production; a discussion of the effect of feeding on the nutritional quality and food safety of beef; new information about nutrient metabolism and utilization; new information on feed additives that alter rumen metabolism and postabsorptive metabolism; and future areas of needed research. The tables of feed ingredient composition are significantly updated.
Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle represents a comprehensive review of the most recent information available on beef cattle nutrition and ingredient composition that will allow efficient, profitable, and environmentally conscious beef production.
Topics: Agriculture
Recent advances in pediatric health, such as declines in child mortality, would never have happened without significant and consistent federal investment - supported by Congress and led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Despite these advances, there is broad consensus among experts that child health is in crisis as children in the United States are experiencing rising rates of chronic diseases and poor mental, emotional, and behavioral health.
NIH tasked the National Academies with convening a committee to examine NIH's pediatric research portfolio and structure and to provide recommendations focused on improving NIH's overall support of pediatric health research. The resulting report provides evidence and eight recommendations to guide NIH's integration of a pediatric and life-course focus throughout its research and funding priorities.
Topics: Health and Medicine | Policy for Science and Technology
Federal tax credits are among the nation's most powerful tools for reducing child poverty. Temporary expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 demonstrated the scale of impact these policies can have, lifting more than 2 million children above the poverty line and showing that alternative designs could reduce child poverty even further.
Pathways to Reduce Child Poverty: Impacts of Federal Tax Credits provides an in-depth assessment of how these credits worked in 2021, what effects they had across different groups of children, and the potential trade-offs of long-term policy options. Developed by a committee of experts, the report offers evidence-based insights for policymakers, funders, researchers, and advocates. It highlights how different credit designs could shape children's well-being, employment incentives, and fiscal costs, and points to opportunities for future research to strengthen policy decisions.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences
The United States faces a critical shortage of computing doctorates - a vital workforce responsible for driving advances in artificial intelligence, bolstering cybersecurity, and training the next generation of computing innovators. A decline in advanced degrees in computing will undercut technology innovation across all sectors and put U.S. global competitiveness at risk.
Pathways to Doctoral Degrees in Computing recommends addressing this anticipated shortage through improved graduate student recruitment, retention, and mentoring programs as well as targeted interventions to address hiring challenges. This report also explores how new partnerships between academia and industry could better align computing programs with broader workforce needs, and what data is needed to support these efforts.
Topics: Education | Computers and Information Technology
The 4th edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence updates the topics covered in the 2011 3rd Edition with the latest science and expands to discuss many new topics, identifying issues that will be useful to judges and others in the legal profession. This valuable reference examines pivotal issues in the areas of science most often subject to dispute, discussing assessment of a case's needs and evaluating experts and data. The Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence will support judges and other legal professions to ensure that science presented in the courtroom can be understood in the lens of the scientific method and reasoning.
First published in 1994 by the Federal Judicial Center, the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence has been relied upon in the legal and academic communities and is often cited by various courts and others. Judges faced with disputes over the admissibility of scientific and technical evidence refer to the manual to help them better understand and evaluate the relevance, reliability, and usefulness of the evidence being proffered. The manual is not intended to tell judges what is good science and what is not. Instead, it serves to help judges identify issues on which experts are likely to differ and to guide the inquiry of the court in seeking an informed resolution of the conflict.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences
Early relationships are foundational for lifelong health, learning, and well-being. Mutual, meaningful, and affirming moments of connection in the youngest relationships support brain development, resilience, and social-emotional growth. These experiences, known as early relational health (ERH), can also buffer the impacts of adversity and help create pathways toward thriving children, families, and communities.
Early Relational Health: Building Foundations for Child, Family, and Community Well-Being provides evidence-based opportunities for advancing ERH. Developed by a committee of experts, this report highlights opportunities for practice, policy, and research to strengthen supportive relationships. It emphasizes asset-based approaches, family and community leadership, workforce supports, and cross-sector collaboration to promote ERH across health care, education, and social systems.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences | Health and Medicine
Breastfeeding supports lifelong health and development for both infants and mothers. It is associated with lower risks of chronic disease, improved maternal health outcomes, and potential health care cost savings. While most families in the United States begin breastfeeding, many are unable to continue as long as they intend due to systemic challenges such as limited parental leave, inconsistent access to lactation support, and inadequate workplace accommodations.
The report Breastfeeding in the United States: Strategies to Support Families and Achieve National Goals provides a roadmap for helping families meet their breastfeeding goals and improving population-level outcomes. It emphasizes the need for strong federal coordination, comprehensive health care and community-based support, and inclusive public policies. Using a life course perspective, the report identifies key intervention points that begin before birth and continue through the return to work or school.
To meet national breastfeeding objectives and improve health equity, the report recommends expanding effective community-based interventions, improving access to high-quality care, enacting supportive policies such as paid family leave, and investing in coordinated research. With sustained leadership and investment, families across the country can have the support they need to achieve their infant feeding goals and help the nation move closer to reaching the Healthy People 2030 targets.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences
The scientific community has been studying the question of how human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases are affecting the climate for well over a century. Much is known today, drawing on decades of direct observations of the Earth system and detailed research. This report summarizes the latest evidence on whether greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health and welfare in the United States.
The impetus for this report was a notice of proposed rulemaking issued in August 2025 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicating its intention to rescind the 2009 Finding of Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act. Recognizing that significantly more evidence is available today, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine launched this study to review newly available scientific evidence on the topics included in a Technical Support Document that EPA prepared to inform its decision-making on the finding.
The report’s authoring committee found that EPA’s 2009 finding that human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases adversely affect human health and welfare was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence. Today, many of EPA’s conclusions are further supported by longer observational records and multiple new lines of evidence. Moreover, research has uncovered additional risks that were not apparent in 2009.
Topics: Environment and Environmental Studies | Health and Medicine
The U.S. medicolegal death investigation system is responsible for investigating and providing determinations of cause and manner of death, playing a vital role in the nation's public health and criminal justice systems. Recent, high-profile deaths in custody cases have drawn widespread attention to the determinations of cause and manner of death made by forensic pathologists, medical examiners, and coroners, and questions have been raised about the scientific validity of such determinations.
Strengthening the U.S. Medicolegal Death Investigation System: Lessons from Deaths in Custody evaluates the handling of deaths in police custody by the medicolegal death investigation system and recommends actions to strengthen the nation's medicolegal death investigation system.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences
Advances in artificial intelligence, and specifically in machine learning, are enabling new capabilities across nearly every sector of the economy. Many of these applications - such as automated vehicles, the power grid, or surgical robots - are safety critical: where malfunctions can result in harm to people, the environment, or property. While machine learning is already being deployed to enhance the capabilities of some physical systems, extending the rigorous practices of safety engineering to include machine learning components brings significant challenges.
Machine Learning for Safety-Critical Applications explores ways to safely integrate machine learning into physical systems and presents research priorities for improving safety, testing, and evaluation. This report finds that designing machine learning algorithms in a way that aligns with safety engineering standards will require changes in research, training, and engineering practice - as well as a shift away from focusing on algorithmic performance in isolation.
Topics: Computers and Information Technology | Engineering and Technology
Minerals form the foundation of our infrastructure, manufacturing, energy systems, and everyday technologies. Demand for these minerals, especially critical minerals, is rapidly increasing, highlighting the need for reliable sourcing and for resilient supply networks to ensure energy security and national competitiveness, and support technological innovation.
The Mineral Resources Program (MRP), within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), plays a central role in addressing the nation's mineral resource challenges by providing the unbiased science and data needed to inform decision making across government, private industry, and academia. At the request of the USGS, the National Academies reviewed MRP and considered how it might best position itself to address current and future mineral resource challenges facing the nation.
This report finds that MRP has demonstrated exceptional leadership and innovation during rapid budget fluctuations and renewed national attention on mineral resources, especially critical minerals, and has significantly advanced mineral deposit science, exploration, and analysis. The report recommends that MRP remain proactive in its priorities, set production targets for critical minerals, create a national atlas of resource potential, improve data delivery, establish external advisory input, regularly update its strategic plan, and strengthen collaboration across USGS and with external partners. These recommendations are intended to help MRP achieve its mission while supporting national objectives and remaining the national authority on minerals information, analysis, research, and assessment.
Topics: Earth Sciences
Individuals and families across the United States face growing challenges in accessing timely, high-quality primary care, which is essential to overall health and well-being. The delivery of such care is becoming more complex, placing undue strain on primary care clinicians and exacerbating existing workforce shortages.
A National Academies committee recently examined the inputs and functions needed for interprofessional teams to successfully and sustainably deliver high-quality primary care. The committee concluded the nation must support the primary care workforce through appropriate and supportive payment; hold payers, states, and health systems accountable in ensuring that such payment reaches primary care practices; and sufficiently train an interprofessional workforce. This report offers nine specific recommendations for how federal agencies and other key players can better support the provision of high-quality, interprofessional, team-based primary care.
Topics: Health and Medicine | Education
Military families raising children with autism often face unique challenges in accessing consistent, high-quality care across frequent moves and deployments. Applied behavior analysis, or ABA, is widely recognized as an effective intervention for many autistic individuals, yet military families report barriers that delay or restrict their access to these services.
The report The Comprehensive Autism Care Demonstration: Solutions for Military Families examines how the Department of Defense's autism care demonstration program is serving families and whether ABA should be covered as a TRICARE Basic benefit. Drawing on a careful review of the scientific literature, the report finds that ABA meets the Department's own standards for reliable medical evidence and should be formally authorized as a TRICARE Basic benefit.
The report identifies key areas where current demonstration policies differ from clinical standards. These include restrictive rules around assessments, limited flexibility in treatment goals and settings, and administrative requirements that impose unnecessary burdens on both families and ABA providers.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences | Health and Medicine
Active shooter drills have become a standard practice in nearly all U.S. schools, yet their potential impact on students and educators has received limited attention. School Active Shooter Drills: Mitigating Risks to Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health explores how these drills are conducted and how to reduce potential harm while supporting school safety. Developed by a committee of experts in education, school safety, public health, pediatrics, child and adolescent development, psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, public policy, and criminology, this report provides an in-depth review of current practices and offers guidance. The report provides suggestions for implementing practices that promote prevention and preparedness while supporting well-being, and foster learning environments where students and staff feel safe, capable, and supported.
School Active Shooter Drills finds that while drills aim to enhance preparedness, they often vary dramatically in intensity and design, from simple safety walk-throughs to unannounced, high-simulation events. Such inconsistencies can heighten anxiety, distress, and confusion, especially among vulnerable student populations. The report underscores that developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed practices are essential, and drills involving realistic simulations or deception should be avoided entirely.
School Active Shooter Drills outlines actionable recommendations for state and local policymakers, school leaders, researchers, and federal agencies, including banning harmful practices, supporting staff training, ensuring equitable inclusion, and increasing access to mental health resources. This report also calls for national guidance and sustained research to strengthen the evidence base and help schools foster safe, inclusive, and supportive learning environments so that schools not only prepare students and staff for emergencies but also protect their mental, emotional, and behavioral well-being.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences
The field of solar and space physics explores the heliosphere - the vast protective bubble formed by the solar wind that extends from the Sun to the outer fringes of the solar system, and beyond. This booklet highlights key themes and recommendations from the 2025 decadal survey for solar and space physics, The Next Decade of Discovery in Solar and Space Physics: Exploring and Safeguarding Humanity's Home in Space.
Topics: Space and Aeronautics
The U.S. scientific enterprise has produced countless discoveries that have led to significant advances in technology, health, security, safety, and economic prosperity. However, concern exists that excessive, uncoordinated, and duplicative policies and regulations surrounding research are hampering progress and jeopardizing American scientific competitiveness. Estimates suggest the typical U.S. academic researcher spends more than 40 percent of their federally funded research time on administrative and regulatory matters, wasting intellectual capacity and taxpayer dollars. Although administrative and regulatory compliance work can be vital aspects of research, the time spent by researchers on such activities continues to increase because of a dramatic rise in regulations, policies, and requirements over time.
To better ensure that the research community is maximally productive while simultaneously ensuring the safety, accountability, security, and ethical conduct of publicly funded research, Simplifying Research Regulations and Policies: Optimizing American Science examines current federal research regulations. This report identifies ways to improve regulatory processes and administrative tasks, reduce or eliminate unnecessary work, and modify and remove policies and regulations that have outlived their purpose while maintaining necessary and appropriate integrity, accountability, and oversight. Simplifying Research Regulations provides a roadmap for establishing a more agile and resource-effective regulatory framework for federally funded research.
Topics: Policy for Science and Technology
Every community across the United States faces impacts on their health and well-being from a wide range of sources including pollution of air, water, and soil and extreme events such as wildfires and other natural or human-caused disasters. Impacts may be heightened by factors such as unaffordable housing, limited or no access to healthcare, poverty, and unemployment. Cumulative impact assessment (CIA) is a tool to help environmental and other relevant decision-makers consider multiple factors in evaluating priorities and potential changes in policies or regulations, with a focus on improving health and well-being.
In response to a request from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this report provides recommendations on the state of the science of CIA and on fostering its application at the community, state, regional, tribal, and national levels. On the basis of input gathered in a number of public meetings, the report recommends EPA expand its CIA framework in important conceptual ways, including to encompass multiple dimensions of health and well-being. Further, the factors that undermine health and well-being (stressors) should be distinguished from those that promote health and well-being (resources).
State of the Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment lays out an expanded, five-step process for cumulative impact assessment that is driven by ongoing meaningful engagement and includes a final step of monitoring and evaluation of decisions implemented. This report's authoring committee applied its recommended five-step process to eight case studies across different contexts and scales - including the region in Louisiana known as "cancer alley"; a tribal population in Colorado; the train derailment and chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio; the Los Angeles, California wildfires; and the replacement of lead service lines across the nation - concluding that the recommendations can increase the effectiveness of actions to improve health and well-being.
Topics: Environment and Environmental Studies | Health and Medicine
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Immunization Safety Office (ISO) is responsible for studying vaccine risks once vaccines are administered to the public. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ISO played a central role in vaccine safety evaluation.
At the request of the CDC, the National Academies convened an expert committee to assess the ISO's statistical and epidemiological methods in vaccine risk monitoring and evaluation, including processes designed to detect, evaluate, and report potential problems associated with COVID vaccines. The committee also evaluated CDC's external communication strategies and provided recommendations to sustain and enhance ISO's vaccine risk monitoring and communication systems. The resulting report presents the committee's conclusions and recommendations.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Intergenerational mobility is an important measure of well-being that underlies a fundamental value: that anyone should be able to succeed economically based on their own merits, regardless of their circumstances. This has been a value held by many Americans throughout U.S. history, even as many observers may rightly argue that it has been, at times and for many groups, severely constrained. For all the emphasis placed on mobility in the United States, the chances Americans have of doing better than their parents and their chances of succeeding economically regardless of the advantages of birth are not higher than in other wealthy countries.
This report provides a forward-looking framework for data, research, and policy initiatives to boost upward mobility and better fulfill promises of opportunity and advancement for all members of U.S. society. The report focuses on key domains that shape mobility, including early life and family; the spaces and places where people live and work; postsecondary education; and credit, wealth, and debt. It also discusses the data infrastructure needed to support an extensive research agenda on economic and social mobility.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences
Military personnel, who are often exposed to a variety of hazards while deployed, have expressed concerns that mental, behavioral, and neurologic health issues may arise from these exposures. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in accordance with Section 507 of the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022 (PACT Act), requested that the National Academies convene a committee of experts to assess possible relationships between exposures experienced during military service and mental, behavioral, and neurologic health conditions and chronic multisymptom illness. Consistent with the PACT Act, the committee focused on veterans deployed to the Southwest Asia Theater of Operations or Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. The resulting report offers conclusions regarding possible risk-conferring relationships between nine categories of exposures and health outcomes including depression, anxiety, and dementia.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Out-of-School Time (OST) programs play a crucial role in child and youth development, serving as a bridge between school, home, and the community. They offer structured environments where young people can engage in meaningful activities, build relationships, and develop essential life skills. OST programs foster personal growth, academic support, career exploration, and social-emotional development. Since the release of the National Academies' 2002 foundational report, Community Programs for Youth Development (the "Blue Book"), OST programs have evolved significantly.
The Future of Youth Development examines the effectiveness of OST programs and identifies access and quality improvements. This book describes the array of OST activities; evaluates their effectiveness in promoting learning, development, and well-being; outlines improvements to existing policies and regulations to increase program access and quality; and lays out a research agenda that would strengthen the OST evidence base. The conclusions and recommendations of The Future of Youth Development will guide and support a sustainable OST system that meets the evolving needs of young people across the country.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences | Education
This is the first of two reports requested by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to address best practices and community experiences in the management and treatment of sickle cell disease (SCD). SCD, a group of inherited blood disorders affecting approximately 100,000 people in the United States, is a chronic, life-long condition that affects every organ system in the body. The life of an individual with SCD is often complicated by frequent bouts of extreme pain and hospitalizations, fatigue, organ damage, and mental health conditions. The cumulative burden of SCD-related health effects can significantly affect quality of life, including the ability to regularly attend and participate fully in school and work.
In response to SSA's request, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an expert, ad hoc committee to review the latest published scientific research and generate findings and conclusions on a variety of topics related to SCD. This report is the first report in a two-report series, and presents the committee's findings and conclusions pertaining to SCD pain crises, pain management, and treatment settings relevant to SSA disability determinations.
Topics: Health and Medicine
The United States is a global leader in biomedical research, generating therapeutic breakthroughs that advance the health of the nation and the world. The public and private sectors contribute to this advancement by funding biomedical research and development. The current level of investment in pharmaceutical development in the United States, while substantial, does not always yield desired health outcomes or meet the needs of patients. Public and private funders face a myriad of challenges that affect their funding decisions and hinder the ability of the drug development system to prioritize disease burden and unmet need - often leaving critical gaps in available treatment options.
To better understand these gaps, Gates Ventures and the Peterson Center on Healthcare asked the National Academies to examine current challenges and offer strategies and recommendations for improvement. The resulting report emphasizes that current research prioritization does not systematically account for disease burden and unmet needs, and describes how a robust, timely, accessible data system is needed. It also explores the ways in which implementing recommended policy changes could deliver better health outcomes.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Elementary particle physics reflects the human quest to understand the basic building blocks of nature and the rules that govern the physical world. This quest has led not only to critical scientific advancements and technology breakthroughs, but also to the development of essential technologies enabling new medical treatments, productive techniques in manufacturing, and enhanced capabilities in quantum computing, as well as ancillary benefits such as the precursor to the World Wide Web, which was created to manage the enormous data flows at CERN.
At the request of the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, this report explores long-term goals and future ambitions for particle physics. Elementary Particle Physics: The Higgs and Beyond presents a bold 40-year vision for the field and highlights critical actions necessary to make this vision reality. The recommendations of this report will guide support and investments to maintain U.S. leadership in particle physics and move the field forward.
Topics: Math, Chemistry, and Physics
As scientific problems grow more complex and interdisciplinary, the need for effective, collaborative, and context-sensitive research teams has never been greater. The Science and Practice of Team Science presents an updated, evidence-based roadmap for supporting science teams across a wide variety of domains, disciplines, and organizational structures.
This new report from the National Academies builds on a decade of learning since the landmark Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science report. It examines how evolving forces - including digital innovation, global disruptions, and the rise of virtual collaboration - are reshaping the way scientific teams form, function, and deliver results. From small interdisciplinary groups to large-scale, distributed multiteam systems, today's science teams require flexible strategies tailored to their goals, environments, and challenges.
The Science and Practice of Team Science outlines adaptable practices that enhance team dynamics and productivity across all phases of research - from development to implementation to translation. These include the use of team charters, psychological safety, communication strategies, and project management. This report also emphasizes the role of technology in enabling collaboration while cautioning that tools must be intentionally deployed to support accessibility, training, and integration with workflows.
Topics: Policy for Science and Technology | Behavioral and Social Sciences
Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies, from the National Research Council, identifies and explores several specific research areas that have implications for U.S. national security, and should therefore be monitored consistently by the intelligence community. These areas include:
As these fields continue to grow, it will be imperative that the intelligence community be able to identify scientific advances relevant to national security when they occur. To do so will require adequate funding, intelligence analysts with advanced training in science and technology, and increased collaboration with the scientific community, particularly academia.
A key tool for the intelligence community, this book will also be a useful resource for the health industry, the military, and others with a vested interest in technologies such as brain imaging and cognitive or physical enhancers.
Topics: Health and Medicine | Behavioral and Social Sciences
For over 60 years, public health newborn screening programs have served families in the United States by identifying babies at risk of serious but treatable conditions and connecting them to clinical care. Today, more than 98% of infants receive dried blood spot screening, which entails collecting a few drops of blood during the first days of life, applying them to a paper card, and sending the card to a lab to be tested for markers of specific health conditions like congenital hypothyroidism, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell disease. The public health impacts of newborn screening are vast, with over 7,000 infants identified annually for timely interventions. Despite these achievements, challenges in implementing newborn screening programs persist.
In response to a congressional request, the Office on Women's Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services asked the National Academies to convene an ad hoc committee of subject matter experts to examine the current landscape of newborn screening in the United States, recommend options to strengthen this public health service, and establish a vision for the future. Supplementary funding was provided by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to enable additional public engagement. The resulting report provides actionable recommendations for navigating the path ahead while preserving and enhancing what is already considered a valuable and effective public health achievement.
Topics: Health and Medicine | Behavioral and Social Sciences
Contrails are visible lines in the sky behind aircraft that occur when warm jet engine exhaust meets the colder surrounding atmosphere, forming small ice crystals. Most contrails dissipate within about 10 minutes, but they can last for hours under certain conditions. Persistent contrails can contribute to atmospheric warming and are estimated to have a climate impact on par with carbon dioxide emissions from aviation.
In early 2024, NASA requested that the National Academies develop a national research agenda to better understand, quantify, and develop technical and operational solutions to reduce the global climate impact of aviation-induced cloudiness and persistent contrails. This report presents priorities for a national contrails research strategy and provides a vision for how this research could eventually support operational contrails mitigation. This research would support the global economic competitiveness of the U.S. civil aviation industry in the context of emerging international aviation regulations.
Topics: Space and Aeronautics | Environment and Environmental Studies
Visual field is the total area of space a person can see when the eyes are focused on a central point. Impairment of the visual field can have significant negative effects on well-being. Individuals with moderate to severe visual field loss may have difficulty performing routine tasks, such as reading, driving, and navigating environments, as well as engaging in social activities. More profound loss leads to greater disability and poorer quality of life. Nearly 8 million people in the U.S. indicate they have blindness or difficulty seeing even while wearing corrective lenses, and the prevalence of visual impairment among U.S. preschool-aged children may be as high as five percent.
Testing for visual field impairment involves a combination of hardware, stimuli, testing patterns, and algorithms. The Social Security Administration (SSA) uses the results of such testing to determine whether applicants for disability based on visual field loss qualify for benefits. In response to a request from SSA, the National Academies convened a committee of experts to review the research and science on methods for testing visual field impairment. The resulting report reviews current and emerging practices and known limitations in visual field testing and offers conclusions to inform disability evaluations.
Topics: Health and Medicine
In response to the buildup of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals during the Cold War, a series of major scientific studies conducted in the 1980s issued warnings about the potential for a "nuclear winter" scenario - the possibility that a large-scale nuclear exchange could inject massive amounts of soot and particulates into the upper atmosphere that would block incoming solar radiation and cause major ecosystem and societal disruptions. In the decades since that concept emerged, profound military, political, and technological changes have reshaped the nuclear landscape, while scientific advances have deepened the understanding of, and ability to model, Earth system processes. It is in this context that the U.S. Congress asked for this report to re-examine the potential environmental, social, and economic effects that could unfold over the weeks to decades after a nuclear war.
The effects of any given nuclear exchange would depend on key processes and interactions along a causal pathway with six stages: weapon employment scenarios and effects; fire dynamics and emissions; plume rise, fate, and transport; physical Earth system impacts; ecosystem impacts; and socioeconomic impacts. Impacts of radioactive fallout were not included in the assessment. Potential Environmental Effects of Nuclear War identifies major uncertainties and data gaps at each stage of the causal pathway that currently limit researchers' ability to understand and model the effects of a nuclear war. This report recommends that relevant U.S. agencies coordinate the development of and support for a suite of model intercomparison projects to organize and assess models to reduce uncertainties in projections of the climatic and environment effects of nuclear war.
Topics: Environment and Environmental Studies
This Report of the Treasurer of the National Academy of Sciences presents the financial position and results of operations as well as a review of the endowment and other long-term investments portfolio activities of our Academy for the year ended December 31, 2024.
Topics: Policy for Science and Technology
Groundbreaking advances in solar and space physics have provided key insights into the dynamic physical processes on the Sun and its influence on Earth, the near-Earth space environment, other planets in our solar system, and beyond. As we look to the next decade, future discoveries in the field will expand our knowledge of the cosmos and better prepare us for the impact of space weather events on critical systems and humanity. The Next Decade of Discovery in Solar and Space Physics: Exploring and Safeguarding Humanity's Home in Space, a National Academies' decadal survey, presents a prioritized strategy for basic and applied research to advance scientific understanding of the heliosphere and the origins of space weather, the Sun's interactions with other bodies in the solar system, and the interplanetary and interstellar mediums.
Topics: Space and Aeronautics
As people get older, they become more likely to have hearing difficulties in certain situations; for example, having conversations in public settings where there is naturally more noise. This can sometimes lead to isolation, depression, or even fatigue from the effort needed to communicate with others. Clinicians and researchers often do not use standardized outcome measures for hearing interventions that reflect patients' perceptions of real-life improvements.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a committee of experts to identify a core set of outcomes and corresponding measures that researchers and clinicians should use each time they assess the effectiveness of hearing aids and other treatments in addressing hearing difficulties. The resulting report, Measuring Meaningful Outcomes for Adult Hearing Health Interventions, presents those outcomes and measures, as well as recommendations for promoting their use within the hearing health community.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Society will not fully benefit from development and use of future discoveries and innovations if we do not provide full access and opportunity to engage in effective STEM education - and we may lack the information, tools, and resources needed to address future challenges facing our planet. Commonly used methods of teaching undergraduate STEM education benefit only a relatively small percentage of learners, leading many to choose not to enroll in STEM courses or pursue STEM careers. This trend severely limits participation in the STEM careers that play a critical role in our nation's prosperity. High quality instruction, learning, and engagement in STEM should be a key priority for colleges and universities across the United States.
Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education: Supporting Equitable and Effective Teaching calls on leaders of institutions and academic units, instructors, and other stakeholders to leverage their important roles to improve the landscape of undergraduate STEM education so that all students can thrive. As one step toward addressing inequities and transforming undergraduate STEM education, this report presents a set of Principles for Equitable and Effective Teaching. These Principles provide guidance for instruction that draw on decades of research on teaching, learning and equity. Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education provides guidance for improving teaching and related changes to the institutional context that are needed to support instructors and enable student-centered undergraduate STEM education.
Topics: Education
The United States generated approximately 292 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) annually, most of which (about 68 percent) were not recycled or composted. Recycling programs face a multitude of challenges today that complicate their stability, efficacy, and economic efficiency. However, a well-designed and supported MSW recycling programs hold many economic and environmental benefits. This report, produced at the request of Congress, reviews available information on MSW recycling programs in municipal, county, state, and tribal governments and provides advice on potential policy options for more effective implementation.
Municipal Solid Waste Recycling in the United States explores the contemporary issues facing MSW recycling programs and lays out recommendations and policy options to chart a path forward. Using diverse case studies and publicly available data, this report includes an analysis of economic and programmatic costs of recycling programs and assessment of material-specific recycling approaches. Recommendations include policy options to support effective, economically viable, and environmentally sound recycling practices.
Topics: Environment and Environmental Studies
Over the last decade, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have created transformational opportunities for health, health care, and biomedical science. While new tools are available to improve effectiveness and efficiency in myriad applications in health and health care, challenges persist, including those related to increasing costs of care, staff burnout and shortages, and the growing disease burden of an aging population. The need for new approaches to address these long-standing challenges is evident and AI offers both new hope and new concerns.
An Artificial Intelligence Code of Conduct for Health and Medicine: Essential Guidance for Aligned Action presents a unifying AI Code of Conduct (AICC) framework developed to align the field around responsible development and application of AI and to catalyze collective action to ensure that the transformative potential of AI in health and medicine is realized. Designed to be applied at every level of decision making—from boardroom to bedside and from innovation labs to reimbursement policies—the publication serves as a blueprint for building trust, protecting patients, and ensuring that innovation benefits people.
Topics: Computers and Information Technology | Health and Medicine
Around 10-20% of people who contract Lyme disease, the most common tickborne disease in the U.S., develop persistent, often debilitating symptoms such as chronic pain, fatigue, and cognitive dysfunction. Lyme infection-associated chronic illnesses (IACI) share symptoms common to other IACI such as Long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Despite the chronic impact on the quality of life for many people, there are currently no validated interventions to treat Lyme IACI.
In response to this unmet need, the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation asked the National Academies to convene a committee of experts to assess the evidence for disease mechanisms, diagnoses, and treatments of Lyme IACI and illuminate a pathway for the development of new treatments. The resulting report, Charting a Path Toward New Treatments for Lyme Infection-Associated Chronic Illnesses, makes recommendations around developing treatments that improve function and quality of life based on currently available evidence, while continuing research to identify root causes and mechanisms of the disease.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) disorders, including mental illness and substance use disorders, affect every U.S. population group, community, and neighborhood. Existing infrastructure focuses more on responding to MEB crises, through treatment and recovery, rather than preventing them through evidence-based policy approaches and programs. Prevention services that do exist are insufficiently funded and fragmented.
Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders focuses on building and sustaining a comprehensive prevention infrastructure for MEB disorders as a whole. Conclusions and recommendations of this report focus on closing research gaps, supporting an MEB disorder prevention workforce, ensuring adequate data to support prevention and reporting, establishing clear governance, securing sustainable funding, and enacting evidence-based policies.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Cybercrime poses serious threats and financial costs to individuals and businesses in the United States and worldwide. Reports of data breaches and ransomware attacks on governments and businesses have become common, as have incidents against individuals (e.g., identity theft, online stalking, and harassment). Concern over cybercrime has increased as the internet has become a ubiquitous part of modern life. However, comprehensive, consistent, and reliable data and metrics on cybercrime still do not exist - a consequence of a shortage of vital information resulting from the decentralized nature of relevant data collection at the national level.
Cybercrime Classification and Measurement addresses the absence credible cybercrime data and metrics. This report provides a taxonomy for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the purpose of measuring different types of cybercrime, including both cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crimes faced by individuals and businesses, and considers the needs for its periodic revision. This report was mandated by the 2022 Better Cybercrime Metrics Act (BCMA).
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences | Computers and Information Technology
The latest edition of Nutrient Requirements of Dairy Cattle includes many improvements over the 1978 edition. The most significant advance in Nutrient Requirements of Dairy Cattle is a computer program, provided on diskette, that includes all requirements for energy, protein, calcium, phosphorus, and vitamins A and D. It is compiled to run on PC-DOS or MS-DOS on IBM-compatible personal computers. A diskette accompanies each book.
Within the book, dry matter intake and energy concentration assumptions have been made more consistent from table to table. A major change involves the expression of protein requirements on the basis of degradable and undegradable intake protein and includes two systems to determine protein requirements. A new table enables users to find data for a cow that resembles their own animals and locate their specific energy, protein, and other dietary requirements. Other tables have been expanded to include data on the nutrient requirements during the 3 weeks of lactation and for cows with higher milk yields.
Topics: Agriculture
When someone experiences the loss of a limb or severe facial disfigurement, one of their options may be vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA), which transfers a graft containing multiple tissues transferred as a functional unit. Using VCA to restore the functionality and aesthetics of a lost upper limb or disfigured face is a profound and life-altering gift; however, the process and the decision to accept (or donate) a VCA graft is complex and deeply emotional. In addition to psychosocial considerations, a VCA recipient must commit to undergoing years of rigorous rehabilitation, have a robust support system in place, and accept and understand the risks of being on immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their life. Despite VCA advances over the last 25 years, challenges remain, and the small number of recipients of face or hand transplants makes it difficult to generalize outcomes.
To address these challenges, the Department of Defense Reconstructive Transplant Research Program tasked a committee of the National Academies with developing principles and a framework for the standardization, assessment, and validation of protocols and standard operating procedures for face and hand transplantation. The resulting report offers guidance for the newly established Clinical Organization Network for Standardization of Reconstructive Transplantation (CONSORT), but it also includes specific recommendations to enable the larger VCA community to mature, advance, and thrive into the future.
Topics: Health and Medicine
The 8th Edition of Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency supports the essential role of relevant, credible, trusted, independent, and innovative government statistics. Since 1992, this report has described the characteristics of effective federal statistical agencies. Government statistics are widely used to inform decisions by policymakers, program administrators, businesses and other organizations, as well as households and the general public.
Principles and Practices is a concise tool to communicate the unique responsibilities of federal statistical agencies. It underscores the invaluable role that relevant, timely, accurate, and trustworthy government statistics play to inform the public and policymakers. Since 2001, an updated edition is released at the beginning of each presidential term.
This eighth edition retains the five principles and ten practices established in prior editions, including updated examples and extensive appendices to reflect the many and varied changes across the national statistical system that have occurred since the passage of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 ("Evidence Act"), the CHIPS and Science Act, and implementing regulations.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences | Policy for Science and Technology | Surveys and Statistics
Formula is often the sole source of nutrition for many infants, making its safety and quality particularly critical. While most food laws and regulations apply to infant formulas, they are also subject to additional requirements and manufacturer regulations for certain quality factors. These include an assessment of protein quality and demonstration that the formula supports normal infant physical growth.
Per the Food and Drug Omnibus Reform Act of 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked the National Academies to examine and report on the state of the science regarding methodologies for assessing the biological quality of protein in infant formula and the ability of infant formula to support normal physical growth. The committee's statement of task noted that its analysis should include the examination of current study designs and methods that could demonstrate quality factors have been met. The resulting report presents conclusions, recommendations, and areas of future research to improve standardized procedures for assessing protein quality in infant formula.
Topics: Health and Medicine | Food and Nutrition
The integration of large language models (LLMs) and generative artificial intelligence (AI) in health care holds the potential to transform the practice of medicine, the work and experiences of health care providers, and the health and well-being of patients. Generative AI can support clinical decision making and streamline workflows, promote patients and their support networks' engagement in care processes, and support clinical research.
However, successful and ethical implementation of generative AI requires careful consideration of the associated risks, particularly those concerning data privacy, bias, transparency, and infrastructure limitations.
Generative Artificial Intelligence in Health and Medicine: Opportunities and Responsibilities for Transformative Innovation explores the transformative potential of generative AI in health care, with a focus on its applications in clinical decision making, administrative efficiency, and patient engagement.
Topics: Health and Medicine | Computers and Information Technology
Cyber technologies underpin every facet of the economy and are critical for national security. Cyber and cyber-enabled systems are rapidly growing in both complexity and scale, and - despite significant progress - are outpacing the capacity to keep them safe, secure, and resilient to disruptions. Cyber hard problems - unsolved technical and research problems for which progress toward solution would have a significant impact on the practical security of cyber systems - are frequently caused or sustained by human or societal factors and misaligned incentives. These in turn are exacerbated by the continuing tremendous growth in the production and use of cyber technologies and their resulting near ubiquity in societally important systems and institutions.
This report builds off of the Cyber Hard Problem List originally developed for the Department of Homeland Security in 1996. Cyber Hard Problems reviews that original list, then provides an update by identifying and describing current key hard problems for cyber resiliency. This report explores each of the identified problems, and then proposes ways to use the list to enhance community-wide coordination of research and development activities.
Topics: Computers and Information Technology | Engineering and Technology
Since its founding, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) has tested more than 50 alternative payment models reaching more than 28 million patients across 528,000 health care providers and plans, yielding invaluable insights on the implementation of models to achieve better care, better health, and lower costs. On the other hand, many basic lessons learned are lessons unapplied. U.S. population health outcomes lag behind its highly economically developed peers and our health system is still firmly entrenched in the fee-for-service payment system that rewards service volume.
This Special Publication suggests six key priority actions for CMMI centered on signaling, mapping, measuring, modeling, partnering, and demonstrating. These priority actions, coupled with implementation considerations that focus on meaningful and continuous engagement, intersectionality and diversity, and expanding CMMI activities and impact, are intended to assist in aligning, supporting, and informing the implementation of CMMI’s Strategic Refresh.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Understanding and anticipating change in the ocean, and how it will affect marine ecosystems and humans, has never been more urgent. Over recent years, basic and applied research in ocean science has developed more accurate forecasts of ocean and seafloor processes that have helped communities adapt to changing conditions. However, at the start of this new decade (2025-2035), U.S. investment in ocean science, engineering, and technology is not keeping pace with growing societal needs, even as U.S. competitors are increasing investments in ocean science and advancing their capacities.
At the request of the National Science Foundation (NSF), this report provides advice on how to focus investments in ocean research, infrastructure, and workforce to meet national and global challenges in the coming decade and beyond, and in doing so, enhance national security, scientific leadership, and economic competitiveness through a thriving blue economy. The report also sets out an overarching challenge for NSF and the broader research community: to establish a new paradigm for forecasting the state of the ocean at scales relevant to human well-being in the next decade. Accomplishing this challenge is reliant on continued funding for basic research across ocean studies and reinvestment in ocean science infrastructure. It will require an integrated approach to research that takes full advantage of emerging technologies, expands the workforce, and increases available resources through strategic partnerships among federal and state agencies, industry, academia, and other interest holders.
Topics: Earth Sciences | Environment and Environmental Studies
Global demand for animal-derived foods such as meat, eggs, and milk is increasing, even as arable land and water to support animal production are declining worldwide. Among the approaches to meet global demand in a resource-constrained future is the genetic improvement of livestock to increase the efficiency and sustainability of animal agriculture. Food-animal breeders are beginning to leverage advances in the fields of genomics and biotechnology to make targeted changes in DNA, called heritable genetic modifications (HGMs), that can be passed onto subsequent generations, thereby significantly accelerating the process of genetic improvement in populations of food animals.
At the request of Congress, Heritable Genetic Modification in Food Animals examines the biological basis of potential health risks relevant to the regulation of HGMs in food animals. This report considers whether hazards could arise during the development of HGM food animals, the methods available to detect hazards, and the likelihood that they could result in harm. Heritable Genetic Modification in Food Animals recommends conducting additional research to fill gaps in understanding of how both HGM techniques and conventional breeding methods influence animal welfare and the quality of animal foods, establishing a study group to gauge public attitudes toward animal biotechnology in agriculture, and developing best practices for public engagement regarding such technologies.
Topics: Biology and Life Sciences | Agriculture
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), which serves as the primary source of dietary guidance from the federal government, provides recommendations for dietary intake and healthful dietary patterns - including alcohol intake. DGA recommendations are informed by systematic reviews. The last review on alcohol and health conducted for the DGA focused on all-cause mortality in 2020; however, questions related to weight changes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive health, and lactation have not been examined since 2010.
To inform the next edition of the DGA, Congress tasked the National Academies with convening an expert committee to independently review the evidence on the relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and eight health outcomes including obesity, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. The resulting report, Review of Evidence on Alcohol and Health, presents the committee's findings and conclusions and does not offer dietary recommendations or advice.
Topics: Food and Nutrition
Artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the life sciences have the potential to enable advances in biological discovery and design at a faster pace and efficiency than is possible with classical experimental approaches alone. At the same time, AI-enabled biological tools developed for beneficial applications could potentially be misused for harmful purposes. Although the creation of biological weapons is not a new concept or risk, the potential for AI-enabled biological tools to affect this risk has raised concerns during the past decade.
This report, as requested by the Department of Defense, assesses how AI-enabled biological tools could uniquely impact biosecurity risk, and how advancements in such tools could also be used to mitigate these risks. The Age of AI in the Life Sciences reviews the capabilities of AI-enabled biological tools and can be used in conjunction with the 2018 National Academies report, Biodefense in the Age of Synthetic Biology, which sets out a framework for identifying the different risk factors associated with synthetic biology capabilities.
Topics: Conflict and Security Issues | Biology and Life Sciences
Climate change is a defining health challenge of the 21st century. Its impacts, from heat-related illness and extreme weather to food insecurity and mental health distress, are already affecting populations across the United States and globally. However, gaps in research, data, infrastructure, and public engagement hinder the nation's ability to respond effectively and equitably.
A Research Agenda to Protect Human Health and Build Resilience in the Face of a Changing Climate outlines a bold vision to advance climate-health research. This agenda identifies key research domains including health impacts, adaptation and mitigation strategies, infrastructure and capacity building, and policy and public engagement. The publication provides actionable guidance to accelerate transdisciplinary science, inform evidence-based policy, and support community resilience, especially for those most vulnerable to climate threats.
Topics: Health and Medicine | Environment and Environmental Studies
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal, infectious prion disease affecting the central nervous system of some species of Cervidae-animals such as deer, elk, and moose. Recognized as a disease in the 1980s but suspected to have been present in the United States for decades longer, CWD affects both captive and free-ranging cervids and has been reported in 35 states and five Canadian provinces of North America as of August 1, 2024. The potential ramifications of the increasing spread of CWD are serious, and include negative impacts on ecosystems, and large economic costs for agencies with management responsibilities related to cervids and for industries that depend on cervids or cervid products. Cultural and food security impacts for communities with traditions tied to cervid hunting are also impacted.
In 2020, Congress passed America's Conservation Enhancement (ACE) Act (P.L. 116-188), directing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lead a task force for addressing CWD in the United States drawing on a study commissioned from the National Academies. This report will assist the task force in prioritizing research and developing future CWD management strategies. It describes the state of knowledge regarding how CWD is transmitted among cervids, the current distribution of disease outbreaks, and the effectiveness of current diagnostic, prevention, and control methods available to limit the spread of the disease.
Topics: Biology and Life Sciences | Environment and Environmental Studies
Our current information ecosystem makes it easier for misinformation about science to spread and harder for people to figure out what is scientifically accurate. Proactive solutions are needed to address misinformation about science, an issue of public concern given its potential to cause harm at individual, community, and societal levels. Improving access to high-quality scientific information can fill information voids that exist for topics of interest to people, reducing the likelihood of exposure to and uptake of misinformation about science. Misinformation is commonly perceived as a matter of bad actors maliciously misleading the public, but misinformation about science arises both intentionally and inadvertently and from a wide range of sources.
Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science characterizes the nature, scope, and impacts of this phenomenon, and provides guidance on interventions, policies, and future research. This report is a comprehensive assessment of the available evidence and reflects a systems view of the problem given the broader historical and contemporary contexts that shape the lived experiences of people and their relationships to information. The report aims to illuminate the impacts of misinformation about science and potential solutions across a diversity of individual peoples, communities, and societies.
Topics: Education
Rural areas can provide a rich context for learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), but these communities and the students in them are often overlooked in ongoing efforts to expand access to high-quality K-12 STEM education and workforce development. Addressing barriers, often related to funding, and promoting unrecognized assets for STEM learning can enhance the ability of individuals in rural areas to further engage in and contribute to their communities or to broader scientific exploration and discovery.
K-12 STEM Education and Workforce Development in Rural Areas makes recommendations to federal, state, and local educational agencies, programs, and other relevant stakeholders to advance STEM education and workforce development for rural America. This report comes in response to a mandate within the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.
Topics: Education
Veterans are more likely than non-veterans to experience pain, trauma, and mental health challenges due to training and combat-related service. Treatment often results in the prescription of opioid and benzodiazepine medications.
In 2024, the National Academies were tasked with convening a committee of experts to evaluate the effects of these medications on all-cause mortality of veterans, including suicide, regardless of whether information relating to such deaths was reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The resulting report examines newly dispensed opioid pharmacotherapy in veterans without and with current benzodiazepine pharmacotherapy; varying levels of the initial baseline dosage and dosage escalation of dispensed opioid pharmacotherapy; and newly dispensed benzodiazepine compared to alternative non-benzodiazepine pharmacotherapy in veterans with consistent opioid pharmacotherapy.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) promise to improve productivity significantly, but there are many questions about how AI could affect jobs and workers.
Recent technical innovations have driven the rapid development of generative AI systems, which produce text, images, or other content based on user requests - advances which have the potential to complement or replace human labor in specific tasks, and to reshape demand for certain types of expertise in the labor market.
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work evaluates recent advances in AI technology and their implications for economic productivity, the workforce, and education in the United States. The report notes that AI is a tool with the potential to enhance human labor and create new forms of valuable work - but this is not an inevitable outcome. Tracking progress in AI and its impacts on the workforce will be critical to helping inform and equip workers and policymakers to flexibly respond to AI developments.
Topics: Computers and Information Technology | Behavioral and Social Sciences
In the modern history of the United States, investment in the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics has resulted in a rich variety of education innovations (programs, practices, models, and technologies). Although a number of these innovations have had the potential to impact learners on a broad scale, that potential often remains unrealized. Efforts vary in their success in widescale implementation and sustainability across different educational contexts - leaving questions about how to achieve the major improvements to STEM education that many policy leaders seek.
Scaling and Sustaining Pre-K-12 STEM Education Innovations: Systemic Challenges, Systemic Responses examines the interconnected factors at local, regional, and national levels that foster or hinder the widespread implementation of promising, evidence-based Pre-K-12 STEM education innovations, to identify gaps in the research, and to provide guidance on how to address barriers to implementation. This report comes in response to a mandate within the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.
Topics: Education
When a titanic explosion ripped through the Number Four reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in 1986, spewing flames and chunks of burning, radioactive material into the atmosphere, one of our worst nightmares came true. As the news gradually seeped out of the USSR and the extent of the disaster was realized, it became clear how horribly wrong things had gone. Dozens died - two from the explosion and many more from radiation illness during the following months - while scores of additional victims came down with acute radiation sickness. Hundreds of thousands were evacuated from the most contaminated areas. The prognosis for Chernobyl and its environs - succinctly dubbed the Zone of Alienation - was grim.
Today, 20 years after the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, intrepid journalist Mary Mycio dons dosimeter and camouflage protective gear to explore the world's most infamous radioactive wilderness. As she tours the Zone to report on the disaster's long-term effects on its human, faunal, and floral inhabitants, she meets pockets of defiant local residents who have remained behind to survive and make a life in the Zone. And she is shocked to discover that the area surrounding Chernobyl has become Europe's largest wildlife sanctuary, a flourishing - at times unearthly - wilderness teeming with large animals and a variety of birds, many of them members of rare and endangered species. Like the forests, fields, and swamps of their unexpectedly inviting habitat, both the people and the animals are all radioactive. Cesium-137 is packed in their muscles and strontium-90 in their bones. But quite astonishingly, they are also thriving.
If fears of the Apocalypse and a lifeless, barren radioactive future have been constant companions of the nuclear age, Chernobyl now shows us a different view of the future. A vivid blend of reportage, popular science, and illuminating encounters that explode the myths of Chernobyl with facts that are at once beautiful and horrible, Wormwood Forest brings a remarkable land - and its people and animals - to life to tell a unique story of science, surprise and suspense.
Topics: Explore Science | Environment and Environmental Studies
Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD), a collection of neurodegenerative conditions, take a heavy physical, emotional, and financial toll on individuals, families, and communities. Developing effective strategies for preventing and treating these conditions, which impact millions of people in the United States, is one of the most pressing needs in biomedical research today. The National Institutes of Health has invested billions of dollars in this research, which has led to numerous scientific advances over the last decade. However, the pace of progress has not kept up with the growing needs of people living with AD/ADRD and those at risk.
Consequently, the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke asked the National Academies to convene an expert committee to examine and assess the current state of biomedical research and recommend research priorities to advance the prevention and treatment of AD/ADRD. Preventing and Treating Dementia outlines these research priorities and recommends strategies to overcome barriers to progress.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences | Health and Medicine
Women's empowerment, population dynamics, and socioeconomic development have been studied extensively from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. However, attempts to reconcile these perspectives and apply a holistic view to the relationships among these concepts have been rare, and this lack of consensus limits the extent to which these concepts can be applied toward accomplishing global health and development goals.
This report looks to advance the state of knowledge on the impact of women's empowerment and associated population dynamics on socioeconomic development by developing a conceptual framework describing these dynamics and setting an agenda for future policy-relevant research and data collection.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences
Grapevine red blotch disease (GRBD) and grapevine leafroll disease (GLD) are growing threats to the California wine and wine grape sector, which contributes $73 billion annually to the state's economy. These viral diseases not only reduce grape yield and the productive lifespan of vineyards but also affect sugars and other aspects of fruit quality that are relevant to wine flavor profiles. Due to the complexity of the processing and aging winemaking involves, it can take years for the full impact of both diseases on the quality of the final product to become apparent.
At the request of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, this report reviews the current state of GRBD and GLD knowledge, identifies knowledge gaps, and proposes key research and actions that could help reduce the spread and economic impact of these diseases. The report sets out guidance that could help improve GRBD and GLD management and offers strategies that may yield promising solutions for managing these diseases.
Topics: Agriculture
Our planet is facing many complex environmental challenges, including the loss of biodiversity and rapidly changing climate conditions, driven by intensifying human-nature interactions worldwide. Dramatic advances in the biological sciences over recent years are made possible by new tools to study life at many scales, from identifying mutations in a single gene to monitoring changes in plants, animals, and microbes over an entire continent. These tools have the potential to usher in a new era of continental-scale biology (CSB) in which researchers can combine data from various realms across organizational, spatial, and temporal scales, addressing questions on biological processes and patterns that cannot be answered by observations at either small or large scales alone.
This report, prepared at the request of the National Science Foundation, sets out a vision for the development of CSB and identifies the research areas that could most benefit from multi-scale approaches. Advancing the use of CSB to address a wide range of biological and societal challenges will require the development of integrated conceptual frameworks and theories to guide research, deployment of emerging technologies, and development of a skilled workforce to synthesize the vast amounts of data from various sources.
Topics: Biology and Life Sciences | Environment and Environmental Studies
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) live in the American imagination as promising tools for solving pressing global challenges and enhancing quality of life. Despite the importance of the STEM disciplines in the landscape of U.S. political, economic, and social priorities, STEM learning opportunities are unevenly distributed, and the experiences an individual has in STEM education are likely to vary tremendously based on their race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, gender, and a myriad of other factors.
Equity in K-12 STEM Education: Framing Decisions for the Future approaches equity in STEM education not as a singular goal but as an ongoing process that requires intentional decision-making and action toward addressing and disrupting existing inequities and envisioning a more just future. Stakeholders at all levels of the education system - including state, district, and school leaders and classroom teachers - have roles as decision-makers who can advance equity. This consensus study report provides five equity frames as a guide to help decision-makers articulate short- and long-term goals for equity and make decisions about policy and practice.
Topics: Education
Women make up over half of the U.S. population, yet research on women's health conditions, including those that are female specific such as fibroids, more common among women such as anxiety, or affect women differently such as cardiovascular disease, is severely lacking. Medical advances for women have lagged, in part due to a lack of understanding of basic sex-based differences in physiology. To address this, the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Office of Research in Women's Health tasked the National Academies with convening a committee of experts to assess the state of women's health research at NIH, identify critical knowledge gaps, assess the level of funding for women's health research, and more.
The resulting report outlines specific recommendations for NIH women's health research priorities; training and education efforts to build, support, and maintain a robust women's health research workforce; improving internal structures, systems and processes; soliciting, reviewing, and supporting women's health research; and ensuring appropriate levels of funding.
Topics: Health and Medicine
In 2023, the National Academies convened an expert committee to assess the current use of racial and ethnic categories in biomedical research, review existing guidance for researchers, and provide new guidance for future use. The resulting 2025 report, Rethinking Race and Ethnicity in Biomedical Research, outlines nine actionable recommendations and associated resources for advancing the responsible use of race and ethnicity.
The recommendations of Rethinking Race and Ethnicity in Biomedical Research address how to: decide whether to use race and ethnicity in different research contexts; characterize and disclose limitations of datasets that include racial and ethnic information; identify factors to investigate instead of or alongside race and ethnicity; include overlooked populations in analysis; and support sustained community engagement.
Topics: Health and Medicine
National and international plans for halting and reversing climate change focus on reducing and eventually ending the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions: carbon dioxide (CO2) released by fossil fuel combustion. However, as the nation moves towards replacing many fossil CO2-emitting processes with zero- or low-carbon-emission alternatives, special attention is needed to eliminate net carbon emissions from the systems that cannot be fully "decarbonized", such as the production of aviation fuel, chemicals, plastics, and construction materials. For these systems, carbon will need to be managed and utilized effectively, in a way that either prevents CO2 from entering the atmosphere or reuses it through circular processes that do not contribute additional emissions.
Carbon Utilization Infrastructure, Markets, and Research and Development: A Final Report is the second report of a two-part study. The study's first report assessed the state of infrastructure for CO2 transportation, use, and storage, highlighting priority opportunities for further investment. This second report identifies potential markets and commercialization opportunities for CO2- and coal waste-derived products, examines economic, environmental, and climate impacts of CO2 utilization infrastructure, and puts forward a comprehensive research agenda for carbon utilization technologies.
Topics: Energy and Energy Conservation | Math, Chemistry, and Physics
Ensuring every child is on an optimal trajectory to a healthy and productive adulthood is imperative for the nation's future. Investments in children and families improves child health, but also health equity, education outcomes, workforce productivity, and cost-effectiveness in public spending. Despite advances in health care, children, especially those from historically marginalized groups, face rising rates of chronic diseases, obesity, and mental health challenges.
Launching Lifelong Health by Improving Health Care for Children, Youth, And Families presents a vision for transforming the child and adolescent health care system. This report also examines how the health care system can be better positioned to equitably address the needs of all children and families and leverage community supports. This requires transforming key components, such as health care financing, public health investment, community partnerships, and accountability strategies, to encourage team-based care delivery models and attention to and health promotion, prevention, and root causes of health disparities.
Topics: Behavioral and Social Sciences | Health and Medicine
2023 shattered global climate records as the warmest year in the modern record, bringing with it devastating impacts on human and natural systems. Methane emissions, about 60% of which come from human activities, are a major contributor to global warming, second only to carbon dioxide (CO2). Methane is relatively short-lived in the atmosphere but is 80 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat over a 20-year period. Together with reducing CO2 emissions, rapid and sustained reductions in methane emissions are critical to limit both near- and long-term warming in future decades. But given the many barriers to achieving needed emissions reductions at scale, researchers are exploring the potential of technologies to remove methane from the atmosphere.
A Research Agenda Toward Atmospheric Methane Removal is the first report of a two-phase study to assess the need and potential for atmospheric methane removal. This report identifies priority research that should be addressed within 3-5 years so that a second-phase assessment could more robustly assess the technical, economic, and social viability of technologies to remove atmospheric methane at climate-relevant scales. The research agenda presented in this report includes foundational research that would help us better understand atmospheric methane removal while also filling knowledge gaps in related fields, and systems research that seek to address what developing and/or deploying atmospheric methane removal at scale would entail. A Research Agenda Toward Atmospheric Methane Removal also assesses five atmospheric methane removal technologies that would accelerate the conversion of methane to a less radiatively potent form or physically remove methane from the atmosphere and store it elsewhere.
Topics: Earth Sciences | Energy and Energy Conservation | Environment and Environmental Studies
The U.S. science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce plays a vital role in fostering and sustaining innovation, economic competitiveness, and national security. This workforce currently depends, and for the foreseeable future will depend, on both international and domestic talent. Foreign STEM talent contributes to domestic innovation, economic growth, and U.S. leadership in science and technology and also expands perspectives and networks essential to future scientific collaborations and discoveries.
At the request of the U.S. Department of Defense, this report reviews foreign and domestic talent or incentive programs and their corresponding scientific, economic, and national security benefits. International Talent Programs in the Changing Global Environment makes recommendations to improve the effectiveness of U.S. mechanisms for attracting and retaining international students and scholars relative to the programs and incentives other nations use to support national research capabilities, especially in national security and defense-related fields.
Topics: Policy for Science and Technology
Federal facilities are increasingly complex and sophisticated systems of systems, with automated systems tied together through operational technology (OT) networks monitoring and controlling lighting and environmental control systems (CS), among many others. Federal agencies have built virtual fortresses around their information technology (IT) networks, including connected CS and OT networks, yet key vulnerabilities can allow bad actors to tunnel through the embedded layers of protection, interfere with facility operation and control, and gain direct passages into IT networks, bypassing their elaborate protections. On July 9, 2024, the National Academies' Federal Facilities Council convened a workshop to discuss the security of CS and OT networks. Workshop panelists explored the current threat environment; standards, policies, and guidance to protect OT and CS from malicious actors; and approaches that industry has taken to protect its OT and CS security.
Topics: Computers and Information Technology
Since its formation more than 60 years ago, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has served as a global leader in science, aeronautics, and exploration, propelled technological innovation, and inspired youth to pursue careers in science and engineering, while often accomplishing the seemingly impossible. However, despite its critical and transformative role, NASA faces an uncertain future due to declining national investment as a percentage of gross domestic product and systemic issues that compromise its infrastructure, workforce, and capacity for technological innovation.
As requested by Congress in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an independent expert committee to evaluate whether NASA's current workforce, infrastructure, technological capabilities, and their interfaces can meet its strategic goals. NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades considers the critical facilities and emerging technologies necessary to fulfill NASA's mission, as well as the workforce skills and organizational structure required to perform and support the work of the mission directorates, both now and in the future.
Topics: Space and Aeronautics
As the largest U.S. employer, the Department of Defense (DoD) is a major provider of training and development. Given the complex and increasingly unpredictable operational landscape within which the military operates across land, sea, air, cyberspace, and space, continuous learning is vital in the military. Military learners must acquire diverse skills, from communication to using advanced technology, and retain those skills for use when necessary. Success in learning - and the ability to retain and transfer what is learned to military missions - is directly linked with military innovation, operational success, and the success of our nation.
Adult Learning in the Military Context examines motivations shaping learning, contextual and equity factors, emerging learning technologies, effective approaches to assessment, and provides a research agenda. This report highlights that adult learners are most motivated when learning aligns with personal goals but notes that military structures may limit autonomy, potentially impeding motivation. Effective learning contexts are active, interactive, and adaptable, but the use of systematic needs assessments in the military are unevenly implemented. Different stress responses and instructor support can affect learning and performance meaningfully. Technology-enabled learning has established principles that can enhance learning outcomes at scale, but a holistic systems approach is needed rather than treating each learning experience in isolation, even as new technologies like generative AI create additional opportunities. Finally, improved, unbiased assessments are essential for evaluating competencies that may be increasingly important in the future, like adaptability and creativity. The research agenda highlights key areas for researchers to prioritize.
Topics: Education
The National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a report produced periodically by the United States Global Change Research Program that takes a comprehensive look at global climate change. Before release, it undergoes intensive review for technical accuracy. What has not been studied in-depth are the users and uses of the NCA, and how the report has informed decision-making. To support evaluation of stakeholder use of the NCA, the National Academies prepared a strategy for creating and implementing an evaluation design that can inform ongoing and future NCAs and related products. This can support a process of continuous improvement.
The NCA serves a large number of audiences, and they vary in their needs and in access to climate information. An evaluation would benefit from understanding how the audiences for the NCA are interconnected through networks and how they use, modify, and transmit information from the report. The evaluation would also benefit by first creating a logic model to describe how the NCA is hypothesized to achieve its intended outcomes. The logic model can then be used to design a set of overarching evaluation questions, and to prioritize which audiences to target in the evaluation. Different research methods will be appropriate depending on the audience and the level of information available about the audience. Such an evaluation, taken in stages, can reveal the impact of federal climate science on decisions across the nation and help the USGCRP address any gaps and frailties in the NCA and related products and how they are communicated in the future.
Topics: Environment and Environmental Studies | Behavioral and Social Sciences
Semiconductor chips power practically all electronic devices, from cellphones and vehicles to communications and defense systems essential for national security. The Department of Defense (DoD) uses a wide range of semiconductors for mission systems such as radars, sensors, and high-power-density electronics - but the U.S. is now strongly dependent on other nations for both commercial and defense semiconductor needs.
At the request of Congress, this study addresses the challenges that DoD is experiencing as it engages with the global microelectronics sector and explores ways to engage with public-private partnerships to support assured production and innovation in the semiconductor industry. The recommendations of Strategies to Enable Assured Access to Semiconductors for the Department of Defense focus on long-term strategic coordination, investment in emerging technologies, leveraging of commercial advancements, and a modernization strategy that is nimble enough to incorporate emerging technologies and be responsive to global competition.
Topics: Engineering and Technology
The COVID-19 pandemic sparked widespread implementation of wastewater surveillance in communities across the United States to help track the spread of the disease. In contrast to clinical laboratory testing that tracks individual cases of infection, wastewater surveillance provides a way to measure the amount of DNA from pathogens coming from homes, businesses, and other institutions that share a sewer system. To help coordinate and centralize early efforts, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) in September 2020, with pilot sites in eight states. As of April 2024, the NWSS is receiving data from more than 1,300 active sampling sites, covering a population of 130 million individuals.
A Phase 1 report released in early 2023 examined the usefulness of the NWSS during the COVID-19 pandemic, described the potential value of a robust national wastewater surveillance system beyond COVID-19, and provided recommendations to increase the public health impact of such a system. This Phase 2 report details the technical constraints and opportunities to improve wastewater surveillance for the prevention and control of infectious diseases in the U.S. It recommends improvements in the consistency and quality of national wastewater sampling, testing, and data analysis, and identifies research and technology development needs for a national wastewater surveillance system that can serve ongoing and changing public health needs in the United States.
Topics: Health and Medicine | Environment and Environmental Studies
For nearly eight decades, the world has been navigating the dangers of the nuclear age. Despite Cold War tensions and the rise of global terrorism, nuclear weapons have not been used in conflict since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Efforts such as strategic deterrence, arms control and non-proliferation agreements, and the U.S.-led global counterterrorism have helped to keep nuclear incidents at bay. However, the nation's success to date in countering nuclear terrorism does not come with a guarantee, success often carries the risk that other challenges will siphon away attention and resources and can lead to the perception that the threat no longer exists.
This report found that U.S. efforts to counter nuclear or radiological terrorism are not keeping pace with the evolving threat landscape. The U.S. government should maintain a strategic focus and effort on combatting terrorism across the national security community in coordination with international partners, State, Local, Tribal and Territorial authorities, the National Laboratories, universities and colleges, and civil society. Developing and sustaining adequate nuclear incident response and recovery capabilities at the local and state levels will likely require significant new investments in resources and empowerment of local response from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and National Institutes of Health.
Topics: Conflict and Security Issues
The U.S. biomedical research enterprise has played a vital role in advancing science, human health, and the economy. It has contributed significantly to fields such as agriculture, environmental remediation, job creation, and technological innovation. Over the past 80 years, landmark achievements include reducing cancer mortality, developing HIV/AIDS treatments, sequencing the human genome, and creating vaccines that mitigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The enterprise has grown remarkably in less than a century and holds even greater potential for future success. However, its progress is hindered by a lack of high-level national coordination, a fragmented funding system, and a declining workforce.
The State of the U.S. Biomedical and Health Research Enterprise: Strategies for Achieving a Healthier America addresses these challenges in five key areas—strategic vision, funding, health equity, coordination and convergence science, and workforce development—offering a roadmap that could be used to sustain U.S. leadership in global health.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Domestic and foreign violent extremist organizations, or terrorist groups, have caused a greater amount of harm with chemical agents than with biological or radiological weapons. The United States capacity and capability to identify, prevent, counter, and respond adequately to chemical threats is established by the strategies, policies, and laws enacted across multiple levels of government. While the number of chemical terrorism incidents has risen and fallen over time, there is no empirical or analytical indication that the threat is disappearing. This report comes at a time when the nation's highest-level strategies have shifted from focusing primarily on violent extremist organizations to focusing more on Great Power Competition. This shift in relative perceived threat and consequent prioritization will impact efforts against chemical terrorism, and in turn, affect funding priorities. Revised risk assessments are needed to reprioritize risks guided by new strategies, so that strategy-aligned budgets can be created. The report recommends weapons of mass destruction budgets be aligned with evolving priorities and incentivize activities that transition promising research to operations.
Topics: Conflict and Security Issues
Decades of research have shown that disadvantaged communities exist at the intersection of high levels of hazard exposure and poverty. Geospatial environmental justice (EJ) tools, such as the White House Council on Environmental Quality-developed Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), are designed to integrate different kinds of health, social, environmental, and economic data to identify disadvantaged communities and to aid policy and investment decisions that address the pervasive, persistent, and largely unaddressed problems associated with environmental disparities in the United States.
Constructing Valid Geospatial Tools for Environmental Justice evaluates several EJ tools, including CEJST, and provides a conceptual framework and data strategy recommendations for developing the composite indicators that are the heart of geospatial EJ tools. An EJ tool that is transparent, legitimate, and has the trust of its users and the communities it represents is based on a structured iterative process that includes: a clear statement of tool objectives and definitions for the concepts being measured; the selection and integration of data and indicators; and assessment of robustness of the selected data and integration processes. Decisions regarding the tool should be iteratively informed by meaningful community engagement, validation to ensure tool results reflect real-world experiences, and careful and thorough documentation of all decision and data processes.
Topics: Environment and Environmental Studies | Math, Chemistry, and Physics | Behavioral and Social Sciences
Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people and people with variations in sex traits (VSTs) can experience serious health challenges and often have a greater burden of disability or greater morbidity from chronic disease compared with the general population.
"Transgender and gender diverse" refers to people whose gender identity differs from what is typically associated with their sex recorded at birth. "Variations in sex traits" refers to genetic, anatomical, and hormonal variations that affect the genitourinary tract and reproduction systems; individuals with VSTs may have a sex and/or gender identity that differs from their sex recorded at birth.
The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) asked the National Academies to convene a committee of experts to evaluate how contemporary conceptions of sex and gender in medicine and current clinical guidelines impact disability determinations. The resulting report offers conclusions in key areas including (1) the collection of data on sex and gender identity, (2) disability considerations for SSA' Listings of Impairments (medical criteria that apply to the evaluation of disability) with sex-specific diagnostic criteria, (3) inclusive language in disability Listings of Impairments, and (4) guidance for adjudicators on assessing disability for TGD applicants and applicants with VSTs.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Engaging the full breadth of talent in the United States is an important component of growing and sustaining dominance in research and development (R&D) and supporting national security into the future. By 2030, one-fifth of Americans will be above age 65 and at or nearing retirement from the workforce. Estimates of race and ethnic demographic changes between 2016 and 2030 show a decrease in the non-Hispanic white population and an increase in terms of both number and share of all other demographic groups, and this trend will continue to increase. These population shifts signal a citizenry and workforce that will be increasingly diverse. For the United States to maintain its global competitiveness and protect its security interests, targeted support is needed to cultivate talent from communities throughout the nation.
The nation's more than 800 Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) provide an impactful and cost-effective opportunity to focus on cultivating the current and future U.S. population for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including in fields critical to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). At the request of DOD, this report identifies tangible frameworks for increasing the participation of MSIs in defense-related research and development and identifies the necessary mechanisms for elevating minority serving institutions to R1 status (doctoral universities with very high research activity) on the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education scale.
Topics: Education
Over the past several decades, more than half of all U.S. states have legalized cannabis for adult and/or medical use, but it remains illegal at the federal level. The public health consequences of cannabis policy changes have not been comprehensively evaluated.
Therefore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health tasked the National Academies with reviewing cannabis and cannabinoid availability in the U.S., assessing regulatory frameworks for the industry with an emphasis on equity, and describing strengths and weaknesses of surveillance systems for cannabis.
The resulting report finds that there has been limited federal guidance to states regarding protecting public health, which has led to inconsistent protection across the states. The report recommends a strategy to minimize public health harms through stronger federal leadership, a robust research agenda, and more.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Rare diseases, such as sickle cell disease and thalassemia, affect up to 30 million people in the United States and at least 300 million across the globe. Congress called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to sponsor a National Academies study on processes for evaluating the safety and efficacy of drugs for rare diseases or conditions in the United States and the European Union. The resulting report provides recommendations for enhancing and promoting rare disease drug development by improving engagement with people affected by a rare disease, advancing regulatory science, and fostering collaboration between FDA and the European Medicines Agency.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Infant formula is a primary or supplementary source of nutrition for many infants in the U.S. Consequently, disruptions to the supply of infant formula can have a severe impact on infants' health and well-being. In late 2021 and early 2022, a recall of specific infant formula products, followed by a pause in production, resulted in a widespread, national shortage. The incident demonstrated that additional risk management planning is needed to protect infants from the consequences of potential future supply chain disruptions.
In 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration contracted with the National Academies to convene an expert committee to examine and report on challenges in supply, market competition, and regulation of infant formula. The resulting consensus study report explains policy and marketplace vulnerabilities that were exposed during the shortage, describes the extent to which actions taken by relevant stakeholders addressed these vulnerabilities, identifies remaining gaps in the system, and recommends actions to reduce the risk and lessen the effect of any future disruption to the infant formula supply chain.
Topics: Food and Nutrition
About 20 percent of all Americans live with a behavioral health condition, but only half of this population receives treatment - with direct consequences that include poor physical health outcomes, increased health care costs, and reduced quality of life and life span.
Barriers to obtaining behavioral health treatment are most evident in populations receiving Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace plans. Behavioral health care providers serving individuals enrolled in these plans are more likely to experience challenges around reimbursement and training, which disincentivizes participation.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration asked the National Academies to convene an expert committee to examine current challenges in ensuring broad access to evidence-based behavioral health care services through Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace programs and propose strategies to address those challenges.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Experiencing a single disaster - a hurricane, tornado, flood, severe winter storm, or a global pandemic - can wreak havoc on the lives and livelihoods of individuals, families, communities and entire regions. For many people who live in communities in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico region, the reality of disaster is starker. Endemic socioeconomic and health disparities have made many living in Gulf of Mexico communities particularly vulnerable to the effects of weather-climate hazards. Prolonged disaster recovery and increasing disaster risk is an enduring reality for many living in Gulf of Mexico communities. Between 2020 and 2021, seven major hurricanes and a severe winter storm affected communities across the region. As a backdrop to these acute weather events, the global COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, producing a complex and unprecedented public health and socioeconomic crisis.
Traditionally, the impacts of disasters are quantified individually and often in economic terms of property damage and loss. In this case, each of these major events occurring in the Gulf of Mexico during this time period subsequently earned the moniker of "billion-dollar" disaster. However, this characterization does not reflect the non-financial human toll and disparate effects caused by multiple disruptive events that increase underlying physical and social vulnerabilities, reduce adaptive capacities and ultimately make communities more sensitive to the effects of future disruptive events. This report explores the interconnections, impacts, and lessons learned of compounding disasters that impair resilience, response, and recovery efforts. While Compounding Disasters in Gulf Coast Communities, 2020-2021 focuses on the Gulf of Mexico region, its findings apply to any region that has similar vulnerabilities and that is frequently at risk for disasters.
Topics: Environment and Environmental Studies
A high-quality preschool education can foster critical development and learning that promotes joyful, affirming, and enriching learning opportunities that prepare children for success in school and life. While preschool programs generally provide emotionally supportive environments, their curricula often fall short in advancing learning in math, early literacy, and science, and lack the necessary support for multilingual learners emerging bilingualism. Additionally, access to high-quality, effective early learning experiences may be limited and inadequate based on factors such as a childs race, location, gender, language, identified disability, and socioeconomic status.
A New Vision for High-Quality Preschool Curriculum examines preschool curriculum quality for children from ages three to five, with special attention to the needs of Black and Latine children, multilingual learners, children with disabilities and children experiencing poverty in the United States. The report articulates a vision for high-quality preschool curricula for all children, grounded in an equity and justice-oriented principles from inception to implementation and evaluation.
Topics: Education
Women in the United States experience a higher prevalence of many chronic conditions, including Alzheimer's disease, depression, and osteoporosis, than men; they also experience female-specific conditions, such as endometriosis and pelvic floor disorders. A lack of research into both the biological and social factors that influence these conditions greatly hinders diagnosis, treatment, and prevention efforts, thus contributing to poorer health outcomes for women and substantial costs to individuals and for society.
The National Institutes of Health's Office of Research on Women's Health asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene an expert committee to identify gaps in the science on chronic conditions that are specific to or predominantly impact women, or affect women differently, and propose a research agenda. The committee's report presents their conclusions and recommendations.
Topics: Health and Medicine
Topics: Agriculture | Food and Nutrition