About Reports

IOM reports provide objective and straightforward advice to decision makers and the public. This site includes IOM reports published after 1998. All reports from the IOM and the National Academies, including those published before 1998, are available from the National Academies Press.

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  Childhood Obesity Prevention in Texas. Workshop Summary Released: October 21, 2009

  The United States is experiencing an epidemic of childhood obesity. This problem could potentially affect the health of the U.S. population for decades to come, incurring substantial costs to the nation. In particular, Texas is home to three of the five U.S. cities with the highest obesity rates in the nation. The statistics on childhood obesity, demographics, size, and the efforts being made to prevent and reduce obesity in Texas all factored into the Food and Nutrition Board's decision to hold a workshop in Austin, Texas, on February 5-6, 2009. Childhood Obesity Prevention in Texas summarizes the workshop.
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  Community Perspectives on Obesity Prevention in Children. Workshop Summary Released: October 21, 2009

  Childhood obesity has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Recent statistics show that nearly one-third of U.S. children and adolescents are overweight or obese. Increasingly, policy makers are recognizing that environmental factors affect individual behaviors related to food and physical activity. Communities have made efforts to improve these factors in diverse settings and with diverse populations, resulting in many promising approaches. Overall, however, these efforts remain fragmented, and little is known about their effectiveness. To better understand the successes and challenges of these initiatives, the IOM’s Food and Nutrition Board held two workshops in June 2008 and May 2009.
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  School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children Released: October 20, 2009

  The National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program play key roles in supporting the nutrition and health of schoolchildren in the United States by providing nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches each school day. While school meals must meet standards established in 1995, advances have been made in dietary guidance in the years since. At the request of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Institute of Medicine convened a committee to provide recommendations to revise standards and requirements so that school meals are more healthful.
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  Focusing on Children’s Health: Community Approaches to Addressing Health Disparities. Workshop Summary Released: September 2, 2009

  Socioeconomic conditions are known to have profound and long-term effects on health at all stages of life, from pregnancy through childhood and adulthood. Sensitive and critical periods of development, such as the prenatal period and early childhood, present significant opportunities to influence lifelong health. Yet simply intervening in the health care system is insufficient to influence health outcomes early in life. On January 24, 2008, the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Health Disparities and Board on Children, Youth, and Families cohosted a public workshop to discuss the important foundations of adult health that are laid prenatally and in early childhood.
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  Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity Released: September 1, 2009

  In the United States, 16.3 percent of children and adolescents between the ages of two and 19 are obese. The prevalence of obesity is so high that it may reduce the life expectancy of today’s generation of children and diminish the overall quality of their lives. Local governments can play a crucial role in creating environments that make it easier for children to eat healthy diets and move more. The 2009 report Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity presents a menu of recommended action steps for local government officials to consider in their efforts to prevent childhood obesity in their community.
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  Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children: Opportunities to Improve Identification, Treatment, and Prevention Released: June 9, 2009

  Depression is a widespread condition affecting approximately 7.5 million parents in the U.S. each year and may be putting at least 15 million children at risk for adverse health outcomes. Based on evidentiary studies, major depression in either parent can interfere with parenting quality and increase the risk of children developing mental, behavioral and social problems. Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children highlights disparities in the prevalence, identification, treatment, and prevention of parental depression among different sociodemographic populations. It also outlines strategies for effective intervention and identifies the need for a more interdisciplinary approach that takes biological, psychological, behavioral, interpersonal, and social contexts into consideration.
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  A Review of the HHS Family Planning Program: Mission, Management, and Measurement of Results Released: May 26, 2009

  Ample research shows that family planning contributes to the well-being of individuals, families, and broader society as well. Even so, many low-income individuals find it difficult to pay for these much-needed services, highlighting the critical role played by the Title X Family Planning Program, the nation’s only federal program exclusively devoted to providing family planning services. In its 2009 report A Review of the HHS Family Planning Program: Mission, Management, and Measurement of Results, the authoring committee acknowledges the program’s success in providing critical services to those who have the most difficulty obtaining them. However, the report outlines several aspects of the Title X program’s structure that need to be improved if the program is going to truly meet the needs of individuals and families and improve their overall reproductive health and well-being.
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  Adolescent Health Services: Missing Opportunities Released: December 9, 2008

  Adolescence is a time when youth establish health habits, both good and bad, that often last a lifetime. Yet the U.S. health care system today is not designed to help young people develop healthy routines, behaviors, and relationships to prepare them for adulthood. Adolescent Health Services examines the health status of adolescents and reviews the separate and uncoordinated programs and services that currently exist in multiple public and private health care settings.
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  Nutrition Standards and Meal Requirements for National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs: Phase I. Proposed Approach for Recommending Revisions Released: December 3, 2008

  The national nutrition standards and meal requirements for the National School Breakfast and National School Lunch Program meals were created more than a decade ago, making them out of step with recent guidance about children’s diets. At the request of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Institute of Medicine assembled a committee to recommend updates and revisions to the school lunch and breakfast programs. The first part of the committee’s work is reflected in the December 2008 IOM report Nutrition Standards and Meal Requirements for National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs: Phase I. Proposed Approach for Recommending Revisions.
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  The National Children's Study Research Plan: A Review Released: September 12, 2008

  The National Children s Study (NCS) is planned to be the largest long-term study of environmental and genetic effects on children s health ever conducted in the United States. By archiving all of the data collected, the NCS is intended to provide a valuable resource for analyses conducted many years into the future. This report evaluates the research plan for the NCS, by assessing the scientific rigor of the study and the extent to which it is being carried out with methods, measures, and collection of data and specimens to maximize the scientific yield of the study.