What is the Blueprint?
Modernizing Federal Health Evidence: A Blueprint is a policy document that proposes the statutes, institutional designs, and operating practices that would make the federal health evidence enterprise harder to disrupt and better at its job. The federal health evidence enterprise consists of the research funding, disease surveillance, health statistics, program evaluation, and clinical guidance that clinicians, state officials, and policymakers rely on, spread across NIH, CDC, FDA, CMS, AHRQ, NCHS, ASPE, the VA, and the states and tribes whose data the federal system depends on.
For most of a century, the United States built the most productive health evidence system in the world. But much of what protected it rested on habit and good faith rather than law. Other weaknesses are longstanding: data systems are fragmented and slow, and funding rises and falls with the budget cycle. When the system falters, the cost shows up everywhere, in slower outbreak response, weaker treatment guidance, and policy built on incomplete information. This document is designed to remain relevant regardless of who is in office.
Who It’s For
This resource is for everyone who depends on reliable evidence, as well as those who help produce, use, or protect it. The Blueprint combines an agency-by-agency diagnosis with cross-cutting analyses and is designed to help everyone from the general public to patients who interact with the health system, researchers and universities who need to access high-quality data, federal and state leaders who rely on health evidence to make informed decisions, as well as Congress and advocates who are able to advance the legislative, funding, and administrative changes needed to make the recommendations in the Blueprint come to fruition and last, regardless of who’s in office.
Our Editorial Standards
While this document is issued by AcademyHealth alone, it was written with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and reviewed by seven external experts with backgrounds in congressional relations, public health law, federal agency leadership, public health practice, and philanthropy. AcademyHealth understands that conversations about strengthening the federal health evidence system are nuanced and constantly evolving. We are asking for constructive feedback on the Blueprint and plan to update it as needed.
Why AcademyHealth
AcademyHealth has a long track record across the health evidence enterprise. Our role as a convener and evidence translator gives us a close view of what the system can do and where it is vulnerable. Recent results include restoring federal research grants, efforts to protect and document impacts of canceled AHRQ grants, and more.
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