HHS is rewriting the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease to cover 2026 through 2035, replacing the plan built under the National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA). The rewrite is being led by the department's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), and it will set federal priorities on prevention, treatment, diagnosis, and caregiver support for the next decade, according to ASPE's plan page. For family caregivers, the practical headline is that the plan is still being written, not finalized. HHS has gathered public comments and caregiver testimony, and a federal advisory council has weighed in, but no finished 2026-2035 document has been published yet.
Medical information disclaimer: This article is for general educational purposes only and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a physician or other qualified health professional about symptoms, medications, tests, or treatment decisions.
Table of Contents
- What HHS Has Actually Done So Far
- Who Weighed In, and What They Asked For
- What the Draft Framework Looks Like
- Where Things Stand Right Now, and What to Watch
What HHS Has Actually Done So Far
HHS opened the rewrite with a formal public comment process. On July 24, 2026, the department published a Request for Information in the Federal Register, docket HHS-ASPE-2026-0298, asking for input on four areas: prevention and treatment research, risk reduction, early detection and diagnostics, and care and support for people with dementia and their family caregivers, according to the Federal Register notice.
That comment window closed on August 15, 2026, so the formal public input period has already ended, according to a summary from the Roybal Center. HHS supplemented the written comments with listening sessions, bringing in people living with Alzheimer's and related dementias along with their caregivers. A summary report of those sessions, dated August 2026, states the input will directly shape the plan update, according to ASPE's listening session report.
Who Weighed In, and What They Asked For
Advocacy and research groups filed written comments before the August deadline. The National Center for Health Research pushed for dementia research that ties more directly to patient care, while the National Task Group on Intellectual Disabilities asked HHS to explicitly include adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the plan's scope, according to the National Center for Health Research's comments.
The federal Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care, and Services also played a role. A new slate of council members was sworn in on February 9, 2026, and by around August and September 2026 the council had adopted subcommittee recommendations urging Congress to pass the CHANGE Act and the ASAP Act, both aimed at improving early detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, according to UsAgainstAlzheimer's. A July 30, 2026 "final draft" of the council's recommendations also includes a push from its Research Subcommittee for Congress to increase federal Alzheimer's and related dementias research funding, a recurring request tied to the gap between appropriations and the council's own stated targets, according to ASPE's draft recommendations document.
What the Draft Framework Looks Like
An internal ASPE planning document, titled "Approach for Updating National Plan 2026-2035," lays out six goal areas spanning research, care quality, family and caregiver supports, public awareness, progress tracking, and healthy aging. The document also raises open questions about whether to streamline or expand those goals and how to better reflect work already underway at the state, local, and private-sector level, according to the ASPE planning deck.
That same planning document still carries the legacy "prevent and effectively treat by 2025" language from the prior plan, which signals the rewrite had not been finalized as of when the document was drafted. For caregivers tracking this process, that detail is a useful marker: the six-goal framework is the direction HHS is working toward, not a locked-in structure.
Where Things Stand Right Now, and What to Watch
As of this writing in October 2026, no finalized, published version of the 2026-2035 National Plan has appeared on ASPE's site. The materials available are the July RFI, the listening session summary, the internal planning deck, and the advisory council's draft recommendations, according to ASPE's NAPA documents page.
That means any specific numeric target for 2035 should be treated as unsettled until HHS publishes the final plan. Caregivers who want to track the plan's progress have a few concrete options: The six-goal framework circulating in ASPE's planning materials is the clearest signal available right now of where the finished plan is headed, even though its specific targets are still being worked out.
- Check ASPE's NAPA documents page periodically for a published final version.
- Watch for congressional action on the CHANGE Act and ASAP Act, since the advisory council has specifically endorsed both.
- Follow the Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care, and Services, since its recommendations are feeding directly into the plan's final content.
- Note that the comment period has closed, so new public comments are no longer being accepted through the RFI process that shaped this draft.
You Might Also Like
- Serious Illness and End-of-Life Dementia Research Priorities in 2026: Cost and Access Questions for Family Caregivers
- Privacy and Data Access Gaps in 2026 Dementia Research: How Family Caregivers Can Avoid Overreading the Headline
- NIA’s 2026 Late-Life Depression and Dementia Workshop: How Family Caregivers Can Avoid Overreading the Headline
