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.

• 
  Review of NASA's Human Research Program Evidence Books. A Letter Report Released: July 3, 2008

  The newly released Institute of Medicine report, Review of NASA’s Human Research Program Evidence Books: A Letter Report, examines NASA’s plans to assemble the available evidence on human health risks of spaceflight and to move forward in identifying and addressing gaps in research.
• 
  Review of NASA's Space Flight Health Standards. Letter Report Released: February 28, 2007

  At the request of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) established a committee and issued the report Review of NASA's Space Flight Health Standards-Setting Process: Letter Report. The committee was charged with examining the process by which NASA establishes space flight health standards for human performance. It assured the transparency of the current process, as well as considering its validity and integrity, particularly related to ensuring worker safety and integrating stakeholder input.
• 
  Integrating Employee Health: A Model Program for NASA Released: May 13, 2005

  In Integrating Employee Health: A Model Program for NASA the committee found that NASA has a history of being forward-looking in designing programs aimed at improving the health and wellness of its employees.
• 
  Preliminary Considerations Regarding NASA's Bioastronautics Critical Path Roadmap: Interim Report Released: March 9, 2005

  Extending the spatial and temporal boundaries of human space flight are important goals for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), yet human space flight remains an endeavor with substantial risks. NASA's Bioastronautics Critical Path Roadmap (BCPR) defines risk as "the conditional probability of an adverse event occurring, or a system performance-related inefficiency." This is the interim report of the IOM committee's review of NASA's BCPR. The purpose of this report is to provide NASA with preliminary conclusions regarding the strengths and weakness of the BCPR.
• 
  Review of NASA's Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health Released: January 20, 2004

  Astronauts experience a range of physiological and clinical changes while living in space. However, relatively little is known about the potential long-term effects of space flight or overall risk of being an astronaut. In 1992, NASA designed a protocol, called the Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health (LSAH), to examine these effects. NASA requested help from the IOM in assessing the study. The resulting IOM report, Review of NASA's Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health, makes recommendations for improving the validity of the LSAH as a database for monitoring the health of astronauts and for research on the effects of space on humans.