The Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice (BPH), part of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine (IOM), has released a letter report that explores the quality of existing models about a potential influenza pandemic and their utility for predicting the effects of various community containment policies on disease mitigation. The report also examines the available science and previous analyses of the efficacy of community mitigation approaches and the historical record of community interventions utilized during previous influenza pandemics and other relevant outbreaks. IOM, like TRB, is part of the National Academies, which include the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council.