High-Priority Gaps for Clinical Preventive ServicesEXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF or Task Force) is an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine. The Task Force makes evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services to improve the health of all Americans (e.g., by improving quality of life and prolonging life). TheTask Force comprehensively assesses evidence and makes recommendations about the effectiveness of screening tests, counseling about healthful behaviors, and preventive medications for infants, children, adolescents, adults, older adults, and pregnant women.The USPSTF is charged by Congress to provide an annual report that identifies the gaps in the scientific evidence base and recommends areas for future research.In this seventh annual report, the USPSTF calls attention to five clinical preventive services for which the Task Force found that the current evidence was insufficient to make a recommendation in 2016 to 2017 (also known as “I statements”). These include gaps in research on the effectiveness of preventive services for specific age groups; how providing preventive services affects health outcomes; identifying tools to assess people’s risk for a specific disease; understanding the cause or progression of a disease that might be prevented; and the effectiveness of treatments for people who are found to have a disease through screening. Future research in these areas can help fill these gaps and may result in important new recommendations that will help to improve the health of Americans.