Javier Nieto Selected for Two National Committees

Madison, Wisconsin - Dr. Javier Nieto has been named to a prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee charged with developing new methods to evaluate the impact of community-based programs for preventing chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.

Nieto, the Helfaer Professor of Public Health, is chairman of the Department of Population Health Sciences, and an expert in epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases and sleep disorders.

The IOM committee began meeting this summer and has a year to come up with recommendations on the best ways to measure the value of community-based, non-clinical prevention and wellness strategies.

The Institute of Medicine is an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers; it is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

Also this summer, the National Research Council named Dr. Nieto to a national group charged with organizing a national conference on research on fatigue in transit operations. The conference is sponsored by the Transportation Research Board, also an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, and will take place in Washington, D.C., in October.

The aim of the conference is to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners engaged in identifying the best practices to address the public health issue of transit drivers and other transit workers falling asleep at the wheel.

The National Research Council is a private, nonprofit institution that is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.