What is The Blueprint?
Modernizing Federal Health Evidence: A Blueprint, also known as The Blueprint, was written and published by AcademyHealth in 2026, and proposes statutes, institutional designs, and operating practices to make the federal health evidence enterprise more durable, productive, and efficient. The Blueprint is a standing prescription, useful in this administration or the next. It covers the full enterprise, including federal health agencies, as well as the states, territories, and tribes whose data the federal system depends on.
The Blueprint is organized around five goals:
- Protect the independence of federal health research
- Modernize the nation’s health data infrastructure
- Secure sustainable and accountable funding for evidence generation
- Build and sustain the evidence workforce
- Embed evidence in policy and practice
The Blueprint is an in-depth document that is free to the public and includes recommendations for leaders in the federal and state government, as well as researchers, funders, and advocates outside of the government. Every recommendation names three things: who must act, by what mechanism (administrative action, guidance, a budget request, or legislation), and on what timeline. The recommendations are sorted into three categories that recur throughout:
- Can Start Now: Officials can begin this today under authority they already have, with no new decision from agency leadership.
- Leadership Can Act: This needs a decision from agency or department leadership, but under authority the department already holds. No new law required.
- Requires Congress: This can't happen without legislation.
How to Use This Toolkit
This toolkit is designed to empower and equip our community with necessary information to inform stakeholders about what The Blueprint is, why they should engage with it, and how to use it.
This comprehensive resource includes:
- Sample Email Language
- Sample Social Media Posts
- Social Media Images
- Other Resources to Share
Sample Email
Dear [insert name],
For decades, the United States built the most productive health evidence system in the world. Much of what protected it, though, rested on habit and good faith rather than law, and recent strains have exposed that weakness. I am reaching out because AcademyHealth, the nonpartisan professional home for health services and policy researchers, has published a plan to address it: not to restore the system as it was, but to build something sturdier and better than what came before.
Modernizing Federal Health Evidence: A Blueprint, also known as The Blueprint, is organized around five goals:
- Protect the independence of federal health research
- Modernize the nation’s health data infrastructure
- Secure sustainable and accountable funding for evidence generation
- Build and sustain the evidence workforce, and
- Embed evidence in policy and practice
The Blueprint is now available online for anyone talking to staffers on the Hill, working with mid-term candidates, writing a grant proposal, or simply looking to understand how the federal health evidence enterprise could work better. The document works through the enterprise agency by agency, then steps back to address the problems that cross agency lines. Each section diagnoses a structural weakness, then recommends repairs that begin with what current leadership can do and build toward what Congress should make permanent.
Visit the Blueprint homepage to download the full document and other helpful resources.
Sample LinkedIn Posts
- For the past century, the U.S. federal government has run the most productive health evidence system in the world. Now, that system is under strain, and recent disruptions revealed a structural weakness rather than a passing problem. AcademyHealth’s Blueprint treats the disruption as a diagnosis. It proposes statutes, institutional designs, and operating practices for each federal health agency that would make the federal health evidence enterprise harder to disrupt and more productive. Learn more: blueprint.academyhealth.org
- The United States has built an extraordinary health evidence enterprise. But much of what kept it functioning independently and reliably rested on habit and good faith, not law. Recent events haven’t created the weaknesses we’re seeing. They exposed problems that were already there. AcademyHealth’s Blueprint contains recommendations across federal health agencies on who must act, by what mechanism, and on what timeline so that our federal health evidence enterprise can continue saving lives. Check out The Blueprint and related resources here: blueprint.academyhealth.org
Sample X/Bluesky Posts
- We know that the evidence infrastructure in the U.S. is vulnerable. That’s why AcademyHealth created The Blueprint, a guide for federal health agencies to do what they do best – saving lives. Check it out: blueprint.academyhealth.org
- The U.S. has built an extraordinary health evidence enterprise, but recent events have weakened it. AcademyHealth’s Blueprint provides recommendations for how to build a sturdier and better system than before. Check it out: blueprint.academyhealth.org
- What can CMS, NIH, CDC, and other federal health agencies do to build a sturdier and better evidence infrastructure? AcademyHealth’s Blueprint has recommendations for each agency: blueprint.academyhealth.org
Social Media Images
Download the images below to share with your social media posts. Each image features one of the five goals of The Blueprint.
