Political Science - General

Within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for reviewing the safety and effectiveness of medical devices. The decision to label a device as single-use or reusable rests with the manufacturer. To market a reusable...

The transition to adulthood can be difficult for young adults who suffer from a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. When these individuals are unsuccessful, the result can be economic hardship, social isolation, and in some cases suicide, all of which...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific organization created in 1879, and is part of the U.S. government. Their scientists explore our environment and ecosystems, to determine the natural dangers we are facing. The agency has over 10,000 employees that collect, monitor,...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

Of the estimated 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, not all are aware of their HIV-positive status. Timely testing of HIV-positive individuals is important to improve health outcomes and to slow the disease's transmission. It is also important that individuals have access to HIV...

Nearly 11 million Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA), Medicare's private health insurance option. Benefits vary by MA plan and may include coverage for services not available in traditional Medicare. To ensure MA plan benefit package designs do not discriminate against beneficiaries...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

This report discusses the approach that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is taking to implement the Quality Indicator Survey (QIS) nationally. CMS developed the QIS--a new electronic process used to conduct nursing home inspections--to provide a more reliable assessment of the...

In 2006, GAO investigated companies selling direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests and testified that these companies made medically unproven disease predictions. Although new companies have since been touted as being more reputable--Time named one company's test 2008's "invention of the year"--experts remain concerned that the...

Many of our nation's children have difficulty accessing needed health care services. In 2008, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported that about 25 percent of children with insurance and about 55 percent of uninsured children did not receive a recommended routine checkup within the...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) included $10.4 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Of the NIH Recovery Act funding, $8.2 billion was to be...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

On October 8, 2008, the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act was signed into law, requiring GAO to submit a report concerning the effectiveness of current health care and family support programs for the families of children with disabilities. In this report, GAO...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

The anthrax attacks of 2001 and a radiation leak after the recent natural disaster in Japan highlighted concerns that the United States is vulnerable to threats from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents, which can cause widespread illness and death. Medical countermeasures--such as...

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for overseeing medical devices sold in the United States. In general, new devices are subject to FDA review via either the 510(k) premarket notification process, which determines if a device is substantially equivalent to another legally...

U.S. assistance through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has helped provide treatment, care, and prevention services overseas to millions affected by HIV/AIDS. In 2008, Congress reauthorized PEPFAR with the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS,...

The effect of CMS's revised community model on payment accuracy varied for the high-risk groups studied. Specifically, compared with the current community model, the revised community model slightly reduced the accuracy of MA payment adjustments for beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions by $164, or...

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Energy's (DOE) management of its precollege mathematics and science education program, focusing on: (1) DOE program implementation priorities; (2) the role of project evaluations in budget decisions; and (3) whether the program...

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is a agency within the U.S. Department of Interior. BOEM has four sections that cover the United States' waters: Alaska OCS Region, Pacific OCS Region, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region and the Atlantic OCS Region. The Gulf...

The number of drug shortages has grown substantially since 2006. In total, 1,190 shortages were reported from January 1, 2001, through June 20, 2011, according to UUDIS data. From 2006 through 2010, the number of drug shortages increased each year. A record number of...

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), within in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), oversees the 340B Drug Pricing Program, through which participating drug manufacturers give certain entities within the health care safety net--known as covered entities--access to discounted prices on...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

This report formally responds to Congress' request that GAO review the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Screening Partnership Program (SPP). In accordance with the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, TSA created the SPP to allow commercial airports an opportunity to apply to TSA to use...

Even though FDA met all medical device performance goals for 510(k)s, the elapsed time from submission to final decision has increased substantially in recent years. This time to final decision includes the days FDA spends reviewing a submission as well as the days FDA...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

Under PPACA, states are responsible for making a number of changes to their Medicaid programs by January 1, 2014, including expanding eligibility levels and streamlining their enrollment processes. Specifically, states must expand Medicaid eligibility to non-elderly individuals with incomes at or below 133 percent...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

Pervasive and sustained computer-based attacks pose a potentially devastating impact to systems and operations and the critical infrastructures they support. Addressing these threats depends on effective partnerships between the government and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure. Federal policy, including the Department...

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has taken three primary actions since October 2010 to enhance security of inbound cargo on passenger and all-cargo aircraft. First, from October 2010 through May 2011, TSA issued new risk-based security requirements to focus more detailed screening measures on...

The prediction of global climate change in response to both natural forces and human activity is one of the defining issues of our times. The unprecedented observational capacity of modern earth-orbiting satellites coupled with the development of robust computational representations (models) of the Earth's...

Core Science Systems is a new mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that resulted from the 2007 Science Strategy, "Facing Tomorrow's Challenges: U.S. Geological Survey Science in the Decade 2007-2017." This report describes the Core Science Systems vision and outlines a strategy to...

Urban development remains an important agent of environmental change in the United States. The U.S. population grew by 17 percent from 1982 to 1997, while urbanized land area grew by 47 percent, suggesting that urban land consumption far outpaced population growth (Fulton and others,...

Low-impact-development (LID) approaches are intended to create, retain, or restore natural hydrologic and water-quality conditions that may be affected by human alterations. Wide-scale implementation of LID techniques may offer the possibility of improving conditions in river basins, such as the Ipswich River Basin in...

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific organization created in 1879, and is part of the U.S. government. Their scientists explore our environment and ecosystems, to determine the natural dangers we are facing. The agency has over 10,000 employees that collect, monitor,...

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific organization created in 1879, and is part of the U.S. government. Their scientists explore our environment and ecosystems, to determine the natural dangers we are facing. The agency has over 10,000 employees that collect, monitor,...

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific organization created in 1879, and is part of the U.S. government. Their scientists explore our environment and ecosystems, to determine the natural dangers we are facing. The agency has over 10,000 employees that collect, monitor,...

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is a agency within the U.S. Department of Interior. BOEM has four sections that cover the United States' waters: Alaska OCS Region, Pacific OCS Region, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region and the Atlantic OCS Region. The Gulf...

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific organization created in 1879, and is part of the U.S. government. Their scientists explore our environment and ecosystems, to determine the natural dangers we are facing. The agency has over 10,000 employees that collect, monitor,...

The USGS Headwaters Province project in western Montana and northern and central Idaho was designed to provide geoscience data and interpretations to Federal Land Management Agencies and to respond to specific concerns of USDA Forest Service Regions 1 and 4. The project has emphasized...

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed: (1) policies or procedures that might better accomplish the Occupational Safety and Health Act's goal of providing safe and healthy workplaces; (2) options that Congress and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could consider to improve...

The Government's use of multiplex communications technology and the potential for increased exploitation of the technology to reduce long-distance communications costs are described. Long-distance and local communications services are used by the Government to process administrative data between user locations, to make computer inquiries,...

Storm runoff water-quality samples were collected as part of the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation Stormwater Monitoring Program. This program is designed to assess the effects of highway runoff and urban runoff on Halawa Stream. For this program, rainfall data were collected at...

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific organization created in 1879, and is part of the U.S. government. Their scientists explore our environment and ecosystems, to determine the natural dangers we are facing. The agency has over 10,000 employees that collect, monitor,...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed...

GAO was asked to review the appropriateness of the National Science Foundation (NSF) award of two new oceanographic coastal zone research vessels to the University of Miami and the Duke/University of North Carolina consortium. Recognizing that energy and pollution problems were accelerating the need...

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the progress of federal efforts to reduce asbestos hazards in schools, including: (1) the impact of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) technical assistance program to stimulate states and school districts to correct asbestos problems; (2) other...