Books published by National Academies Press

In developing countries, traditional fermentation serves many purposes. It can improve the taste of an otherwise bland food, enhance the digestibility of a food that is difficult to assimilate, preserve food from degradation by noxious organisms, and increase nutritional value through the synthesis of essential amino acids and vitamins. Although "fermented food" has a vaguely distasteful ring, bread, wine, cheese, and yogurt are all familiar fermented foods. Less familiar are gari, ogi, idli, ugba, and other relatively unstudied but important foods in some African and Asian countries. This book reports on current research to improve the safety and nutrition of these foods through an elucidation of the microorganisms and mechanisms involved in their production. Also included are recommendations for needed research.

How is society influenced by engineering and technology? How in turn does society shape engineering and technology? This book from the National Academy of Engineering explores ways in which technology and society form inseparable elements in a complex sociotechnical system. The essays in this volume are based on the proposition that many forces move and shape engineering, technology, culture, and society. Six specialists both inside and outside the field of engineering offer views on how engineering responds to society's needs and how social forces shape what engineers do and what they can achieve.

Scientific experiments using animals have contributed significantly to the improvement of human health. Animal experiments were crucial to the conquest of polio, for example, and they will undoubtedly be one of the keystones in AIDS research. However, some persons believe that the cost to the animals is often high. Authored by a committee of experts from various fields, this book discusses the benefits that have resulted from animal research, the scope of animal research today, the concerns of advocates of animal welfare, and the prospects for finding alternatives to animal use. The authors conclude with specific recommendations for more consistent government action.

The predominant way of making steel in the United States is by using an electric arc furnace (EAF) to melt scrap steel, which results in the formation of a rock-like material called slag. Among its various applications, EAF slag is used in a loose or unencapsulated form as ground cover material for residential landscaping. However, the slag generated from the EAF process can contain toxic metals, which can be hazardous to human and environmental health. This report, conducted at the request of the U.S. EPA, discusses the relative hazard of key EAF slag constituents, the extent to which they may be released into the environment, and important aspects in assessing human exposures and risk. Due to uncertainties in the current evidence stream, the report was unable to make an overall characterization of risk related to unencapsulated EAF slag use in the United States and cautions against making generalizations from conclusions in published risk assessments. The report also identifies research needs to better understand factors considered to have the potential to contribute to the highest risks from the use of unencapsulated EAF slag, such as human exposure to dust particles that may be released over time from applied slag.--Publisher's website.

"Research shows that that children learn science and engineering subjects best by engaging from an early age in the kinds of practices used by real scientists and engineers. By doing science and engineering, children not only develop and refine their understanding of the core ideas and crosscutting concepts of these disciplines, but can also be empowered to use their growing understanding to make sense of questions and problems relevant to them. This approach can make learning more meaningful, equitable, and lasting.Using cases and shorter examples, Rise and Thrive with Science shows what high-quality teaching and learning in science and engineering can look like for preschool and elementary school children. Through analyses of these examples and summaries of research findings, the guide points out the key elements of a coherent, research-grounded approach to teaching and learning in science and engineering. This guide also discusses the kinds of support that educators need to implement effective and equitable instruction for all children. This book will provide inspiration for practitioners at the preschool and elementary levels to try new strategies for science and engineering education, whatever their level of experience.Rise and Thrive with Science will be an essential guide for teachers as they organize instruction to enable young children to carry out their own science investigations and engineering design projects, determine the kinds of instruction that lead to meaningful learning, and try to engage every one of their students."--

Young people often engage and lead efforts to improve the social, economic, and environmental factors that influence the health and equity of communities and the nation. The National Academies Roundtable on Population Health Improvement hosted a hybrid public workshop in September 2023 at The California Endowment Center for Healthy Communities in Oakland, California to discuss the power of youth leadership in creating conditions for health and equity and the civic infrastructure and resources that support youth participation and leadership in change efforts.

Social media has been fully integrated into the lives of most adolescents in the U.S., raising concerns among parents, physicians, public health officials, and others about its effect on mental and physical health. Over the past year, an ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine examined the research and produced this detailed report exploring that effect and laying out recommendations for policymakers, regulators, industry, and others in an effort to maximize the good and minimize the bad. Focus areas include platform design, transparency and accountability, digital media literacy among young people and adults, online harassment, and supporting researchers.

Smart manufacturing technologies - from advanced sensors to new computing capabilities - have the potential to greatly improve the productivity, energy efficiency, and sustainability of the U.S. manufacturing sector. Successfully implementing these technologies is essential for ensuring U.S. competitiveness and providing new job opportunities for the U.S. workforce. Options for a National Plan for Smart Manufacturing explores promising technologies transforming the manufacturing sector and identifies the research and resources needed to accelerate smart manufacturing adoption industry wide. This report also identifies critical needs for education and workforce development for smart manufacturing and makes actionable recommendations to support and train the next-generation manufacturing workforce.

Existing systems are not prepared to provide the mental health care services needed by the growing population of older adults. The National Academies Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders hosted a public workshop in May 2023 to highlight the current state of mental health care for older adults, outline the challenges they face, and explore potential long-term strategies and solutions for addressing unmet mental health needs. Discussions emphasized information about wellness and prevention, social determinants of health in aging populations, the impact of workforce shortages and gaps, the need for supportive healthy communities, and strategies to promote positive mental health.This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

There are significant challenges facing the workforce needed to provide high-quality care to increasing numbers of people living with serious illness. The National Academies Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness hosted a hybrid public workshop in April 2023 to explore strategies and approaches to address major workforce challenges, such as health professional well-being; workforce shortages; workforce training and retention; as well as how to advance the diversity, equity, and inclusion of the workforce caring for people of all ages and all stages of serious illness. This workshop builds on the 2019 Roundtable workshop Building the Workforce We Need to Care for People with Serious Illness.

The National Academy of Engineering convened a three-day workshop from May 24-26, 2021, which sought to define directions for future research on best practices, metrics, and policies that promote diversity in engineering and how they fit into the larger system of recruiting and retaining engineering students from all backgrounds. Workshop discussions examined the system of higher education admissions, transfer and 3+2 programs, research on admissions, and the advantages of and concerns with using artificial intelligence and data science tools in recruiting, admissions, and retention. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshop.

Current assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) do not enable all prospective parents to have genetically related children. The National Academies Board on Health Sciences Policy hosted a workshop in April 2023 to explore the development of in vitro-derived human eggs and sperm from pluripotent stem cells through a process known as in vitro gametogenesis (IVG). Speakers emphasized the impacts of the potential biotechnology on research and reproductive medicine should clinical IVG ever be approved, along with the many social, ethical, legal, and technical considerations its development raises. This proceedings document summarizes workshop discussions.

The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is one of the U.S. Census Bureau's major surveys with features making it a uniquely valuable resource for researchers and policy analysts. However, the Census Bureau faces the challenge of protecting the confidentiality of survey respondents which has become increasingly difficult because numerous databases exist with personal identifying information that collectively contain data on household finances, home values, purchasing behavior, and other SIPP-relevant characteristics. A Roadmap for Disclosure Avoidance in the Survey of Income and Program Participation addresses these issues and how to make data from SIPP available to researchers and policymakers while protecting the confidentiality of survey respondents. The report considers factors such as evolving privacy risks, development of new methods for protecting privacy, the nature of the data collected through SIPP, the practice of linking SIPP data with administrative data, the types of data products produced, and the desire to provide timely access to SIPP data. The report seeks to balance minimizing the risk of disclosure against allowing researchers and policymakers to have timely access to data that support valid inferences.

The National Academies Roundtable on Population Health Improvement hosted a workshop in February 2022, A Population Health Workforce to Meet 21st Century Challenges and Opportunities. The event, building upon the proceedings from their March 2019 workshop, Dialogue about the Workforce for Population Health Improvement, was further informed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of climate change, and recent attention to and expenditure on the public health workforce. Workshop discussions explored the scope of work and work settings for public health and population health workers; the state of the workforce including attrition and gaps in specific roles and disciplines; and challenges to training, recruiting, and retaining workers. This Proceedings of a Workshop summarizes the presentations and discussions held during the workshop.

Since 1790, the U.S. census has been a recurring, essential civic ceremony in which everyone counts; it reaffirms a commitment to equality among all, as political representation is explicitly tied to population counts. Assessing the 2020 Census looks at the quality of the 2020 Census and its constituent operations, drawing appropriate comparisons with prior censuses. The report acknowledges the extraordinary challenges the Census Bureau faced in conducting the census and provides guidance as it plans for the 2030 Census. In addition, the report encourages research and development as the goals and designs for the 2030 Census are developed, urging the Census Bureau to establish a true partnership with census data users and government partners at the state, local, tribal, and federal levels.

From April 25-26, 2023 the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to identify challenges in and opportunities for measuring suicide in the law enforcement occupation. Experts in the field met to identify ways to improve the measurement of suicide by current and former police and corrections officers, dispatchers, and other sworn and civilian personnel, in public and private organizations. This proceedings provides a synthesis of key themes identified during the workshop.

Complementary feeding refers to the introduction of foods other than human milk or formula to an infants diet. In response to a request from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Academies Health and Medicine Division convened the Committee on Complementary Feeding Interventions for Infants and Young Children under Age 2 to conduct a consensus study scoping review of peer-reviewed literature and other publicly available information on interventions addressing complementary feeding of infants and young children. The interventions studied took place in the U.S. and other high-income country health care systems; early care and education settings; university cooperative extension programs; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); home visiting programs; and other settings. This consensus study report summarizes evidence and provides information on interventions that could be scaled up or implemented at a community or state level.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to aid new mathematical discoveries. Particularly as the amount of data available grows beyond what any person can study, AI can be useful in its power to identify patterns in data and refine relationships between properties. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Board on Mathematical Sciences and Analytics convened a 3-day public virtual workshop on June 12-14, 2023, to bring together stakeholders to discuss the state of the art and current challenges and opportunities to advance research in using AI for mathematical reasoning. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

On March 20 and 21, 2023, the Board on Science Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a workshop titled Effective Health Communication within the Current Information Environment and the Role of the Federal Government. Workshop speakers and participants, a majority of whom were working in government agencies in federal health communication or leadership positions, joined both in person in Washington, D.C. as well as virtually to explore the current health information environment as it pertains to public trust and behavior change, explore how federal health agencies can communicate effectively within the current information environment and what is needed to support effective health communication moving forward. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

"Research in biological and physical sciences in space provides the critical scientific and technological foundations that make space exploration possible. As humanity looks towards the Moon and Mars for future missions, this work is needed to help astronauts adapt and live in the harsh environments of space. Thriving in Space provides a roadmap for increasing national investment in biological and physical science research, from experiments to infrastructure to education. This report identifies key scientific questions, priorities, and ambitious research campaigns that will enable human space exploration and transform our understanding of how the universe works.Thriving in Space reviews the state of knowledge in the current and emerging areas of space-related biological and physical sciences research and generates recommendations for a comprehensive vision and strategy for a decade of transformative science at the frontiers of biological and physical sciences research in space. This report will help NASA define and align biological and physical sciences research to uniquely advance scientific knowledge, meet human and robotic exploration mission needs, and provide terrestrial benefits."--Publisher's website.

Pediatric subspecialists are critical to ensuring quality care and pursuing research to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for children. However, there are substantial disincentives to pursuing a career as a pediatric subspecialist, which are often heightened for individuals from groups underrepresented in medicine, and more effective collaboration with primary care clinicians is needed. Changing health care needs, increasing care complexity, and access barriers to pediatric subspecialty care have raised concerns about the current and future availability of pediatric subspecialty care and research. In response, the National Academies, with support from a coalition of sponsors, formed the Committee on the Pediatric Subspecialty Workforce and Its Impact on Child Health and Well-Being to recommend strategies and actions to ensure an adequate pediatric subspecialty physician workforce to support broad access to high quality subspecialty care and a robust research portfolio to advance the health and health care of infants, children, and adolescents. This report outlines recommendations that, if fully implemented, can improve the quality of pediatric medical subspecialty care through a well-supported, superbly trained, and appropriately used primary care, subspecialty, and physician-scientist workforce.

The Department of the Air Force (DAF) is in the early stages of incorporating modern artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into its systems and operations. The integration of AI-enabled capabilities across the DAF will accelerate over the next few years. At the request of DAF Air and Space Forces, this report examines the Air Force Test Center technical capabilities and capacity to conduct rigorous and objective tests, evaluations, and assessments of AI-enabled systems under operational conditions and against realistic threats. This report explores both the opportunities and challenges inherent in integrating AI at speed and at scale across the DAF.

A key step towards reducing the burden of central nervous system (CNS) disorders is the identification of disease-specific biomarkers that can help predict, monitor, and guide treatment development. Recent technological advances have led to an increased number of biomarkers for different CNS disorders, providing the opportunity to generate multimodal biomarkers. While multimodal biomarkers can serve as promising tools to better diagnose and make accurate disease assessments, there remain challenges in current data collection, standardization, and validation practices that impede in their development. Recognizing the need for increased CNS biomarker integration, the National Academies Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders hosted a public workshop in March 2023 to explore steps toward this goal, including data collection for biomarker discovery, development, validation, and assessment of clinical utility. This Proceedings of a Workshop summarizes the discussions held during the workshop.

Today, with a changing climate putting pressure on communities and ecosystems worldwide, goals for a carbon-neutral economy mean that renewable and low-carbon energy sources are being presented as solutions. While these cleaner energy sources have the potential to reduce risk to the environment and bring energy security closer to a reality, questions remain about the stability of the energy supply chain, the ability to meet energy demand reliably, and the best ways to produce fair and equitable outcomes in an energy transition. To serve as a catalyst for developing new insights and coordination around the energy transition, the Gulf Research Program at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a 2-day workshop in Washington, DC, called Navigating the Energy Transition in the Gulf of Mexico. Based around two scenarios in the year 2050 - one in which a carbon neutral economy is achieved and another in which robust dependence on fossil fuels remains - this serious gaming event stimulated the sharing of ideas, concerns, and cascading impacts from participants across academia, industry, government, and Gulf communities. This publication summarizes the activities, presentations, and discussion of the workshop.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was asked to articulate a 5-year strategic vision for international health security programs and provide findings and recommendations on how to optimize the impact of the Department of Defense (DOD) Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) in fulfilling its biosafety and biosecurity mission. Because BTRP is just one of several U.S. government programs conducting international health security engagement, both the strategic vision and the success of the program rely on coordinating actions with the U.S. government as a whole and with its international partners. This report provides several recommendations for optimizing BTRP success in its current mission and the wider-looking strategic vision it proposes.

The National Academies Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education hosted a multi-day workshop series in March and April 2023 to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in health professions education. Speakers at the workshops provided background on AI; discussed the social, cultural, policy, legal, and regulatory considerations to integrating AI into health care and training; considered the skills health professionals will need as educators and providers to effectively use AI in practice; and explored needs for educating the next generation of health workers. Speakers took consideration of the bias, burden, health equity concerns that introducing AI into clinical education would bring. This Proceedings of a Workshop summarizes the discussions held during the workshop.

Responding to climate change will entail massive socio-emotional and behavioral changes. Translating policies, investments, or built infrastructure-reshaping mandates into real and sustained local impact that incorporates accountability and culture change will require hands-on work. Adaptive societal responses to climate change will succeed or fail based on the attitudes, behaviors, social cohesion and capital, organizational and emotional strengths, and collective impact and input of all stakeholders. To consider how to integrate, align, and converge the broad mix of social, behavioral, and cognitive sciences to produce new insights and inform efforts for enhanced human responses to environmental change, Board on Environmental Change and Society of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine convened this 2023 workshop, entitled Committee on Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change: A Workshop. The workshop was intended to investigate ways to accelerate and deepen conversations within the social sciences and to focus on synthesis, especially for the purpose of increasing community capacity to understand and effectively respond to climate change-induced environmental changes - at scales ranging from the individual to the household to the community, and all the way up to the level of state and international governance. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

Where people live can affect their health because of location-specific exposure to chemicals and toxicants, lifestyle, diet, immune function development, and social and historical determinants of health. A better understanding of the connections between environmental exposures and genetics that are associated with cancer can help inform efforts to identify risks and prevent potentially harmful outcomes. Recent scientific advancements have brought new insights into genomic and epigenomic biomarkers of cancer, which encompasses the toxicogenomic effects of environmental hazards, genetic susceptibility to environmental exposures, and the role of genetic and epigenetic changes in the development of cancer. Public communication around the potential risks of environmental hazards has also been evolving. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine National Cancer Policy Forum convened a virtual public workshop in collaboration with the Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health on April 13, 2023 to explore the state of the science in identifying potential genomic and epigenomic biomarkers of environmental exposures associated with cancers, with an emphasis on pediatric cancers. This proceedings document summarizes workshop discussions.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides health care and other benefits to eligible veterans with physical and mental injuries or illnesses (conditions) related to their military service. When the scientific information needed to connect a veterans service or a particular military exposure with their diagnosed condition is nonexistent, impossible to obtain, or incomplete, VA may make a presumption of service connection using a formalized decision process. In 2022, VA instituted a series of changes intended to ensure the presumption decision process was more scientifically based, fair, consistent, transparent, timely, and veteran-centric. The PACT Act of 2022 called for a National Academies committee to review the VA revised process document used to identify medical conditions to evaluate for presumption status, the factors that such an evaluation entails, and the governance process for the review and approval of a presumption recommendation. This resulting report, Review of the Department of Veterans Affairs Presumption Decision Process, contains the committee findings, conclusions, and recommendations.