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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8.5 x 11
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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 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.
252 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-53979-X
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-59410-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29240
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Vaccine Risk Monitoring and Evaluation at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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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.
370 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99536-1
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99537-X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29219
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Exploring Military Exposures and Mental, Behavioral, and Neurologic Health Outcomes Among Post-9/11 Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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The Manhattan Project was a large-scale, top-secret program of the U.S. federal government created with the specific purpose of developing the world's first nuclear weapon. Each step of the manufacturing process involved potential exposures to chemical and radiological hazards for those involved. Records documenting Manhattan Project processes, activities, and individual people were not uniform, archived in various locations, and at times destroyed due to both administrative and accidental reasons, resulting in a fragmented historical record of the people and activities.
Given these uncertainties, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs asked the National Academies to conduct a feasibility assessment to determine whether an epidemiologic study could be conducted to examine health outcomes in active-duty military veterans who participated in the Manhattan Project at 13 specified sites. The resulting report offers conclusions on the feasibility of conducting such a study and provides alternative methods to examine associations between exposures and adverse health outcomes among this population of veterans.
270 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99504-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73134-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/28585
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Evaluation of Manhattan Project Records for Veteran Health and Exposure Assessments. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop_series
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine assembled the ad hoc Committee on State-of-the-Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment to convene state-of-the-science workshops and develop a consensus report to advise the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on further developing the scientific foundation underlying the practice of cumulative impact assessment. This proceedings provides a summary of a workshop series that the committee convened as part of its information-gathering activities. The series included a community-engaged workshop in New Orleans, Louisiana; a virtual Town Hall with members of the community and Tribal liaison group from across the United States; and a Tribal engagement event in Aurora, Colorado. This proceedings has been prepared by the workshop rapporteurs as a summary of what occurred during the workshops.
76 pages
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7 x 10
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-09923-4
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-09925-0
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29094
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. State of the Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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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.
384 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-73092-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73093-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/28577
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Blueprint for a National Prevention Infrastructure for Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop_in_brief
In February 2025, the National Academies Roundtable on Population Health Improvement hosted the fourth workshop in its Elevating the Structural Drivers of Population Health series, focusing on the implications of economic systems on health and well-being. The workshop examined how democratic principles and approaches can inform the economic system and improve conditions for population health and well-being.
13 pages
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8.5 x 11
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99357-1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29149
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Economic Systems as a Structural Driver of Population Health Through the Lens of Democracy and Governance: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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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.
334 pages
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8.5 x 11
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-73133-X
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73128-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/28584
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Veterans, Prescription Opioids and Benzodiazepines, and Mortality, 2007–2019: Three Target Trial Emulations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop_in_brief
As of August 2024, dozens of bills across more than half of the U.S. had introduced legislation limiting or prohibiting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in academia. The National Academies Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity hosted a public hybrid workshop in October 2024 to explore the effects of the changing DEI legislation and policies landscape on the health care and public health workforce. Presenters gave special focus to the impact of changes on medical and public health training, curriculum, research, and recruitment, and highlighted potential solutions for mitigating adverse effects of policy changes. This Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief highlights the presentations and discussions that occurred at the workshop.
13 pages
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8.5 x 11
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73559-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29075
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Exploring the Changing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Legislation and Policy Landscape and Its Impact on Health and Public Health's Workforce, Education, Training, and Research: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop_in_brief
Communities often face overlapping stressors like pollution, climate change, and social inequities that combine to create more significant health risks and environmental challenges than any single factor alone. Cumulative impact assessments can help scientists and communities understand the impacts of multiple environmental stressors by accounting for the totality of exposures and their cumulative effects over the life course, providing a scientific basis to help guide more equitable and effective decision-making to improve public health, well-being, and environmental resilience.
To understand best practices for cumulative impact assessments and inform future activities, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine assembled an ad hoc committee to convene state of the science workshops and develop a consensus report to advise the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on further developing the scientific foundation underlying the practice of cumulative impact assessment. The committee held its first public workshop, State of the Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment: Workshop 1, on October 15, 2024, to gather information for developing their eventual consensus report. The workshop brought together participants from academic and private research organizations, non-governmental organizations, and government agencies in an online forum to discuss fundamental concepts and methods pertinent to cumulative impact assessment. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
11 pages
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8.5 x 11
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73497-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29058
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. State of the Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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The Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice's Roundtable on Population Health Improvement was established in February 2013 to bring together philanthropy, community-based organizations, health care delivery, governmental public health, academia, and business in a wide-ranging dialogue about what is needed to improve health in the United States and across the population.
In 2024, the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement hosted public workshops and webinars and released publications resulting from these events. The work in 2024 focused on exploring economic systems as a structural driver of population health, changing the narrative around health determinants and actions needed, multisector collaboration to advance population health, the role of government and democracy, and the importance of culture change.
19 pages
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8.5 x 11
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73502-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29060
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Roundtable on Population Health Improvement: Annual Report 2024. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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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.
506 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-73139-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73140-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/28586
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. A New Vision for Women's Health Research: Transformative Change at the National Institutes of Health. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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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.
270 pages
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7 x 10
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-72463-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72464-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27913
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Rethinking Race and Ethnicity in Biomedical Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Workshop_in_brief
The National Academies' Roundtable on Population Health Improvement hosted the third installment in their workshop series, Elevating the Structural Drivers of Population Health, focused on economic systems as a social determinant of health. Convened in September 2024, the event emphasized the importance of partnerships, highlighting three related concepts across three panels: solidarity, shared value, and movement building. Each contributes to a well-being economy that centers and protects vulnerable communities, offers resources to build infrastructure, and mobilizes systemic change. This Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief highlights the presentations and discussions that occurred at the workshop.
13 pages
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8.5 x 11
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73366-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/28879
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Economic Systems as a Structural Driver of Population Health through the Lens of Partnerships: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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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.
198 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-71620-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72786-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27516
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Increasing the Utility of Wastewater-based Disease Surveillance for Public Health Action: A Phase 2 Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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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.
340 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-71900-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-71901-1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27766
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Cannabis Policy Impacts Public Health and Health Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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The National Academies Roundtable on Population Health Improvement introduced the workshop series on Elevating the Structural Drivers of Population Health with a March 2024 public webinar which discussed economic systems' roles in population health and implications for scientific understanding, actions, and solutions. In June 2024, the second installment of the series examined the role of narrative in shaping the economy and society, with effects on health and well-being. Presentations emphasized how some narratives about the economy and workers can cause harm and deepen health inequities, but others can inspire collective action and drive change. This proceeding summarizes presentations and discussions that occurred at the workshop.
12 pages
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8.5 x 11
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-72902-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/28032
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. An Introduction to Economic Systems as a Structural Driver of Population Health and Exploring Narratives and Narrative Change: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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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.
493 pages
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6 x 9
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-71864-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-71865-1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/27757
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Advancing Research on Chronic Conditions in Women. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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