The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Oct. 22 released the 2026 Update to the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias, replacing the plan’s six long-standing goals with four and putting dementia risk reduction at the top of the list. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the update at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The national plan grew out of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA), which Congress passed in late 2010, and the first version was released in 2012, according to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), which coordinates it. The six-goal structure guided federal activity for nearly 15 years, the 57-page plan document says. Congress reauthorized NAPA through 2035 in October 2024, and the update is framed as setting the direction for federal action over the next decade.
The four new goals are:
- Promote dementia risk reduction across the lifespan, by advancing understanding of risk factors, supporting healthy aging and putting evidence into practice where it may reduce risk or delay onset.
- Accelerate discovery and innovation to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, covering research, biomarkers, clinical trials, treatment development and translation into practice.
- Advance high-value dementia care across the care journey, from detection and diagnosis through treatment, management, coordination and transitions between settings.
- Strengthen evidence-based services and supports for people living with dementia and their families, including caregiver support, long-term services, home and community-based services, respite, education, safety and planning.
The previous goals had included a headline aim to “prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias by 2025,” alongside goals on care quality, family supports, public awareness, data and healthy aging. The new structure drops the dated target and, HHS says, follows the course of brain health and dementia across the life course. The update also adds “related dementias” to the plan’s title, which HHS says reflects public input and the shared challenges families face across different forms of dementia. The department said it will measure progress toward each goal over the coming year and report on the plan’s impact in a 2027 update.
HHS paired the release with initiatives across 10 agencies. The Food and Drug Administration launched an Alzheimer’s Prevention Accelerator, the first initiative of a new program called NeuroNexus that links the agency’s drug, biologics and device centers; the plan says it will promote innovation in the design of prevention trials and the development of tools such as biomarkers and digital health technologies to support them. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health announced up to $48.8 million for projects on earlier detection and intervention, bringing its Alzheimer’s-related investments to as much as $155.3 million. Other items include expanded dementia training and screening in health centers, studies of diagnostic delays and the economic burden of dementia, and a test of a lifestyle intervention for Medicare beneficiaries with mild cognitive impairment.
“Under President Trump, HHS is shifting the national strategy toward prevention, earlier detection, and faster development of better diagnostics and treatments,” Kennedy said in the release. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said: “The human and financial costs of Alzheimer’s and dementia care are growing at unacceptable rates, and this updated national plan addresses both.”
Why it matters
The scale of the disease is set out in the plan itself. An estimated 7.4 million Americans are living with dementia in 2026, a figure projected to nearly double to 13.8 million by 2060. In 2025, more than 12 million family members and other unpaid caregivers provided an estimated 19.6 billion hours of care. Payments for health care, long-term care and hospice for people aged 65 and older with Alzheimer’s and related dementias are projected to reach $409 billion in 2026, and a broader cost model puts the total societal cost, including unpaid care and lost earnings, at $818 billion.
The Alzheimer’s Association reports similar figures: more than 7 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s, nearly 13 million projected by 2050, and unpaid care in 2025 valued at more than $446 billion. One in three older Americans dies with Alzheimer’s or another dementia, the association says. The shift from a 2025 treatment target to risk reduction and early detection follows a period in which, as the plan notes, the FDA approved disease-modifying treatments for early symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease.
What to watch
The plan lists priority activities for 2027 under each goal, including the National Institute on Aging’s 2027 Alzheimer’s Disease Research Summit, and HHS has committed to reporting measured progress in the 2027 update. Details of how the FDA accelerator will operate, and which projects receive the new ARPA-H awards, had not been published with the plan.
The caveats
The update is a coordinating framework rather than a funding law; the ARPA-H figures are stated as “up to” amounts, and the plan says it does not list every federal activity underway. The prevalence and cost figures are estimates drawn from research cited in the plan and by the Alzheimer’s Association, and the two sources use slightly different definitions and projection years.
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