In December 1997, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense asked the IOM to convene a group of experts to consider the numerous questions regarding the health of Gulf War veterans and then to determine how best to address the issues of measuring and monitoring the health of these veterans. The charge to the IOM was to:

• identify relevant questions regarding the evaluation of health status of active-duty troops and veterans deployed to the Gulf War;
• identify issues to be addressed in the development of study designs and methods that would be used to answer such questions; and
• develop a research design(s) and methods that could be used to address such questions.