the achievement of such changes. These indicators will need to be reasonable in number and based on explicit models of health behavior and outcomes, as well as adhere to a set of criteria specific to these models.

The charge to the IOM committee on leading health indicators for Healthy People 2010 is intended to build further upon the efforts of the DHHS working group by eliciting input from experts (1) to select or develop a model(s) to provide a foundation for the identification of necessary criteria and (2) to identify the necessary criteria that will result in the proposal of sets of leading health indicators that will be monitored routinely at the national, state, and, if feasible, local and community levels for the interval from 2000 to 2010. In accomplishing these objectives, the committee will prepare two interim reports, conduct a public forum to receive feedback on candidate sets of leading health indicators, and prepare a final report with recommendations for a minimum of two sets of leading health indicators.

This first interim report presents a historical overview of the Healthy People initiative. This is followed by a summary of the proposed Healthy People 2010, including a description of the products of the DHHS work group on leading health indicators. The report concludes with committee commentary on the DHHS work group's discussion of criteria for the indicator sets, the functions of the indicator sets, and future challenges in using such leading health indicator sets for improving the health of the nation.