Placing public health onto the Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias public policy platform

Abstract

In 2017, the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging added public health to the Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) policy platform by introducing the Building Our Largest Dementia Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act. Since then, 34 state health departments, 7 local, 2 territorial, and 1 tribal health organization have received a BOLD Program award from the Centers for Disease Control. With the support of the Alzheimer’s Association and university-based Centers of Excellence, their efforts have increased public awareness, expanded training of health-care providers, linked public health programs and health-care systems, and supported programs to reduce the risk for ADRD. In this forum, we draw on examples of federal and state policymaking targeting persons living with dementia and demonstrate how iron triangles consisting of advocacy organizations, public servants and policymakers have been critical in building a public policy platform for more than 50years. We then consider how public health leadership may rely on such iron triangles to expand their role, focusing on the critical role assumed by professional and academic organizations in educating and training those who may help respond to the public health crisis being presented by the booming number of older Americans with ADRD.