BOLD Infrastructure for Alzheimer's Act Signed into Law

January 2019 BOLD Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act Signed Into Law Designed to activate a full-fledged public health response to Alzheimer’s, the Building Our Largest Dementia (BOLD) Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act (S. 2076) was signed into law just before the close of 2018. This bipartisan legislation authorizes a major expansion of the Alzheimer's public health infrastructure across the country, embracing a population-level approach to address the growing burden of Alzheimer’s, dementia and cognitive impairment. The BOLD Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish centers of excellence that expand and promote the evidence base for effective population-based interventions to improve dementia outcomes. The agency can also offer funding to state, local, and tribal public health departments to promote cognitive health and risk reduction, increase early detection and diagnosis, and better address the needs of caregivers. Just as significant, the legislation aims to improve collection, analysis and timely reporting of data on cognitive decline and caregiving related to Alzheimer’s to inform future public health actions. These collective investments significantly expand the capacity of state and local public health departments to implement actions of the Healthy Brain Initiative’s State and Local Public Health Partnerships to Address Dementia: The 2018-2023 Road Map. With a flexible agenda of 25 actions, the Healthy Brain Initiative (HBI) Road Map provides strategies that experts identified as having the greatest potential public health impact, while being adaptable for different health department priorities. Use of the HBI Road Map actions enables public health to meet the ambitious goals of the BOLD Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act: reduced population risk for cognitive decline and cognitive impairment, prevention of avoidable hospitalizations, mitigation of health disparities, and improved access to caregiver support.