Consensus
An accurate measure of poverty is necessary to fully understand how the economy is performing across all segments of the population and to assess the effects of government policies on communities and families. In addition, poverty statistics are essential in determining the size and composition of the population whose basic needs are going unmet and to help society target resources to address those needs.
An Updated Measure of Poverty: (Re)Drawing the Line recommends updating the methodology used by the Census Bureau to calculate the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to reflect household basic needs. This report recommends that the more comprehensive SPM replace the current Official Poverty Measure as the primary statistical measure of poverty the Census Bureau uses. The report assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the SPM and provides recommendations for updating its methodology and expanding its use in recognition of the needs of most American families such as medical care, childcare, and housing costs.
150 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-69739-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-69740-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/26825
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. An Updated Measure of Poverty: (Re)Drawing the Line. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Consensus
U.S. national security depends on defense software that is secure, reliable, and agile. At the request of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a study to explore how to enhance the assurance and agility of large-scale, integrated software-based systems. This report recommends ways the Department of Defense can engineer and manage its software systems to reduce cyber risk and enable more rapid system evolution to meet changing mission needs.
134 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99273-7
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99274-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29129
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Defense Software for a Contested Future: Agility, Assurance, and Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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NCHRP Web-Only Document 425: Development of the Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, Third Edition is supplemental to and documents the research objectives, methods, and results of NCHRP Research Report 1148: Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, Third Edition.
32 pages
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8.5 x 11
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99390-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29159
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Development of the Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems: Third Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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NCHRP Research Report 1148: Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, Third Edition, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents updated guidelines for integrating human factors (HF) principles into the planning, design, construction, and operation of roadway systems. The guidelines build on previous editions of Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems.
Supplemental to the report is NCHRP Web-Only Document 425: Development of the Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, Third Edition.
492 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99386-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99387-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29158
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems: Third Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Consensus
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.
204 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99588-4
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99586-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29232
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Strengthening the U.S. Medicolegal Death Investigation System: Lessons from Deaths in Custody. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop_series
The Gulf of Alaska and the Southern Gulf Coast have been the sites of the two worst oil spills in U.S. history, Exxon Valdez (1989) and Deepwater Horizon (2010), respectively. These spills had devastating impacts on the environment, human health, the local economy, the seafood industry, and local communities’ way of life. While the incidents differed in many ways, the response and recovery efforts both worked to restore the environment and help communities move on from their losses.
To explore best practices and lessons learned from these oil spills, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Gulf Research Program launched a three-part workshop series to bring together people with connections to the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills to discuss the challenges, successes, and areas where improvements could be made. The first workshop was held in Anchorage, Alaska in October 2024; the second workshop was held in Thibodaux, Louisiana in December 2024; and the final workshop was held in Washington, D.C. in March of 2025. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshops.
244 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99440-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-60122-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29176
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Gulf-Alaska Knowledge Exchange: Learning from the Legacy of Past Oil Spills: Proceedings of a Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop
Pharmacy plays a critical role in improving patient outcomes and strengthening health systems. In May 2025, the National Academies convened leaders in pharmacy education, practice, policy, and industry for a two-day workshop to examine how the profession has evolved to meet changing health care demands. Presenters and participants explored strategies to address "pharmacy deserts" and expand equitable access to pharmacy services through financially sustainable practice models for pharmacist services; approaches for fostering well-being and resilience in the pharmacy workforce; models for financial sustainability that could address pharmacist burnout, declining enrollment, and community pharmacy closures; and next-generation education and training programs to prepare pharmacists for diverse and emerging roles. This Proceedings of a Workshop summarizes discussions and presentations from the workshop.
194 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99576-0
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-60117-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29229
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Innovations in Pharmacy Training and Sustainable Practice to Advance Patient Care: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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The majority of bridges built in the United States utilize concrete bridge elements with prestressed uncoated steel strands that are susceptible to corrosion, leading to structure deterioration. Delaying strand corrosion will reduce maintenance needs, extend bridge service life, and enhance safety.
NCHRP Research Report 1161: Stainless Steel Strands for Prestressed Concrete Bridge Elements, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents state-of-the-art guidelines to assist state departments of transportation (DOTs) in the applications of stainless steel strands for prestressed concrete bridge elements.
94 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-59931-8
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-59932-6
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29245
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Stainless Steel Strands for Prestressed Concrete Bridge Elements. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Consensus
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.
336 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99314-8
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99315-6
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29139
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. The Comprehensive Autism Care Demonstration: Solutions for Military Families. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Transportation agencies, including state departments of transportation (DOTs), are increasing their focus on resilience as they continue to manage the impacts of extreme weather and natural hazard variability on transportation infrastructure and communities that rely on them to sustain and improve their quality of life. To enable evaluation and an eventual transition to a performance-based planning and implementation approach for investing in resilience, agencies need approaches and tools to track the efficacy of resilience initiatives, projects, and investments.
NCHRP Web-Only Document 432: Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, is supplemental to NCHRP Research Report 1159: Measuring Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts: A Guide.
105 pages
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8.5 x 11
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99487-X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29208
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Ensuring the safety and security of customers is a core responsibility of public transit agencies. Perceptions of personal safety play a critical role in influencing travel behavior, with fear and anxiety about personal safety acting as major deterrents to transit use.
TCRP Synthesis 184: Improving Transit Customer Perception of Personal Security, from TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program, documents the current state of the practice related to customer perceptions of safety and security on bus and rail transit. Drawing from a literature review, a national survey of 35 transit providers, and in-depth case examples of five transit providers, this synthesis highlights strategies to improve customers’ outlook, the effectiveness of those strategies, how the strategies are communicated to the public, and the associated change in customers’ perceptions.
102 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-59927-X
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-59928-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29244
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Improving Transit Customer Perception of Personal Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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State departments of transportation (DOTs) have increased their focus on resilience initiatives to address impacts from short-term and long-term stressors such as extreme weather events, wildfires, and flooding. Economic shifts, changes in population, and other disruptions also cause transportation agencies to modify their practices to accommodate uncertainty. State DOTs need tools and approaches to justify additional project expenses for increasing resilience.
NCHRP Research Report 1159: Measuring Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts: A Guide, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents a guide for applying resilience performance measures (RPMs) to resilience investments made by state DOTs.
Supplemental to the report is NCHRP Web-Only Document 432: Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts.
76 pages
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8.5 x 11
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99479-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99480-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29207
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Measuring Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts: A Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Derailment loads in nearly all U.S. transit design criteria documents are similar across agencies. However, it is unclear whether horizontal and vertical derailment loads for the efficient and safe design of transit structures are reasonably accurate.
TCRP Research Report 257: Determination of Actual Derailment Loads on Transit Bridges, from TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program, provides the transit industry with a reasoned basis for derailment loads on bridges. It also offers methodologies that bridge design engineers can utilize to calculate the horizontal and vertical derailment impact loading.
92 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-59972-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-59973-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29257
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Determination of Actual Derailment Loads on Transit Bridges. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can have lasting physical, cognitive, and emotional health effects that extend well beyond the initial event. In March 2025, the National Academies' Forum on Traumatic Brain Injury convened a workshop to explore TBI as a chronic condition and to identify opportunities to improve lifelong care.
Participants examined evidence supporting the classification of TBI as a chronic condition, explored the biological mechanisms that drive long-term outcomes, and discussed the complex comorbidities that can persist or emerge years after injury. Lived experience perspectives shared throughout the workshop underscored the human impact of these issues and the importance of sustained, multidisciplinary support for recovery and well-being. This Proceedings of a Workshop summarizes presentations and discussions from the workshop.
124 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-60041-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-60039-1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29230
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Examining Traumatic Brain Injury as a Chronic Condition: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Symposium_in_brief
On March 13-14, 2025, the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted the most recent Gilbert W. Beebe symposium, with the goal of discussing the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the fields of radiation therapy, medical diagnostics, and occupational health and safety. Among other topics, symposium participants discussed the importance of data for AI readiness, multimodal modeling, digital twins, uncertainty quantification and trustworthiness, and bias and ethics as it applies to each of these fields.
The Gilbert W. Beebe Symposium was established by the Board on Radiation Effects Research (a predecessor of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board) in 2002 to honor the scientific achievements of the late Dr. Gilbert W. Beebe, a distinguished National Cancer Institute radiation epidemiologist who was one of the designers and key implementers of the epidemiology studies of Japanese atomic bomb survivors and a co-founder of the Medical Follow-up Agency. The symposium is used to promote discussions among scientists, federal staff, and other interested parties concerned with radiation health effects.
114 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99459-4
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99460-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29200
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Gilbert W. Beebe Symposium: AI and ML Applications in Radiation Therapy, Medical Diagnostics, and Radiation Occupational Health and Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop_in_brief
Labor and employment policies impact where people live and work, as well as their access to health care and overall well-being. The National Academies' Roundtable on Population Health Improvement held a public workshop in June 2025 to examine the specific ways in which these policies influence health outcomes and health equity across communities. Discussions addressed the impact of larger trends shaping the modern labor market, such as automation and gig work, on health and economic security; effects of unemployment insurance, paid leave, wage laws, and scheduling protections; and more. This Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief summarizes presentations and discussions from the workshop.
14 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-60082-0
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29281
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Exploring Relevant Policy Domains: Labor and Employment Policy and Population Health: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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The Census Transportation Planning Products datasets and the American Community Survey are critical data elements that support the analysis of transportation plans, policies, programs, and project selection.
NCHRP Research Report 1108: Census Data Field Guide for Transportation Applications, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents a comprehensive field guide for transportation practitioners on how to effectively utilize census data to support transportation analyses.
136 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-73399-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73400-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29028
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Census Data Field Guide for Transportation Applications. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States. Despite significant risks associated with young drivers, current driver’s licensing exams are not strong predictors of driving safety. The on-road driving skills examination represents a “gateway” from the learner phase to licensure and independent, unsupervised driving.
BTSCRP Research Report 16: Predicting High-Risk Drivers: Skills Examination and Scoring Guidelines, from TRB's Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program, provides guidance and methods to reliably and consistently identify drivers who pose a high safety risk and need more driving experience before being licensed.
88 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99549-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99550-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29223
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Predicting High-Risk Drivers: Skills Examination and Scoring Guidelines. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Early career STEMM professionals - individuals entering graduate school or seeking postdoctoral positions - face decreasing programmatic support, resulting in smaller cohort sizes. Amid growing tension and uncertainty, critical questions have reemerged around the role of trainees within this system and their place in a rapidly changing future. This confluence of events has created a landscape which invites a comprehensive examination and fundamental rethinking of the STEMM enterprise towards clarity on priorities for reform and advancement in the future. To explore training and career development of STEMM graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a Summit on July 22-23, 2025. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the summit.
20 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-60090-1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29283
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Reimagining STEMM Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Career Development: Proceedings of a Summit—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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