Health and Medicine

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in United States, causing more than 440,000 deaths annually and resulting in $193 billion in health-related economic losses each year--$96 billion in direct medical costs and $97 billion in lost productivity. ...

The Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies reviews scientific findings and stakeholders concerns related to the safety of the recommended childhood immunization schedule. This report also identifies potential research approaches, methodologies and study designs ...

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest.  Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and ...

The past 25 years have seen a major paradigm shift in the field of violence prevention, from the assumption that violence is inevitable to the recognition that violence is preventable. Part of this shift has occurred in thinking about why ...

Physical fitness affects our ability to function and be active. At poor levels, it is associated with such health outcomes as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Physical fitness testing in American youth was established on a large scale in the 1950s ...

During the past century the major causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States have shifted from those related to communicable diseases to those due to chronic diseases. Just as the major causes of morbidity and mortality have changed, ...

At the turn of the 21st century, several important reports and events designed to raise awareness of health disparities and to describe initial efforts to reduce health disparities took place. The Surgeon General's office released several reports that showed dramatic ...

As a number of diseases emerge or reemerge thus stimulating new vaccine development opportunities to help prevent those diseases, it can be especially difficult for decision makers to know where to invest their limited resources. Therefore, it is increasingly important ...

In the last 25 years, a major shift has occurred in the field of violence prevention, from the assumption that violence is inevitable to the realization that violence is preventable. As we learn more about what works to reduce violence, ...

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to examine three topics in relation to public health: measurement, the law, and funding. IOM prepared a three report series--one report on each topic--that contains actionable recommendations for public ...