In response to a request from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) established the Committee on Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020 to develop and recommend 12 indicators and 24 objectives for consideration by HHS for guiding a national health agenda and for consideration for inclusion in Healthy People 2020. The work of the committee built upon the 1999 IOM report, Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2010, and on the work of the Committee on the State of the USA Health Indicators. Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020 lays out the proposed agenda for the current decade, which will end in 2020.