Projects

Policy Impact Project (PIP)

The Policy Impact Project is a venture of the Policy and Analytics Center, under the direction of Dr. Lindsay Shea at the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University. This project was created in response to the need for changes in policy - today – to address the needs of autistic people and their families in the U.S. PIP uses research findings to propel systems-level policy solutions that improve the lives of autistic people and those with other developmental disabilities. We work to achieve this by building the infrastructure needed to highlight research findings that have potential to inform policies and decisions that affect the lives of neurodiverse individuals.

Autism Transitions Research Project (ATRP)

ATRP aims to study life outcomes among transition age autistic youth and adults with a focus on equitable outcomes among minority groups. This project includes interventions such as support for Latinx autistic youth and young adults to learn essential life skills that would smooth the transition to adulthood. ATRP includes autistic individuals and their families in leading input on project goals, objectives, and activities.

Autistic Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P)

AIR-P focuses on improving health and life outcomes among autistic people across the life course, and particularly those that are a part of underserved and communities. Outcomes researched in this project include physical health indicators, mental health indicators, employment, postsecondary education, community participation, financial security, and access to community services. AIR-P aims to support and educate on transition care for autistic people throughout the life course and especially from childhood to adulthood.

The A.J. Drexel Autism Institute was awarded an Autism Centers of Excellence award which will fund the PHASES (Public Health and Autism Science advancing Equitable Strategies across the life course) projects. These projects will use public health frameworks to explore the impact of health determinants, health services delivery, and health equity on health outcomes among autistic people across the life course, from early childhood through older adults. Additionally, this project aims to promote health equity by focusing on autistic individuals from minority and underserved communities.

The PHASES project also launched an associated Data Core for the project data needs. The Data Core centralizes the various data that will be used across the projects associated with PHASES to concentrate data expertise and enhance collaboration. Here the focus is on creating secured storage and organized management of large-scale data, such as electronic health records, national claims data, mortality data, and small area contextual data. The secure and centralized management system for data increases efficiency across operations and the individual studies done within the PHASES projects. The National Autism Data Center works with the Data Core to access data and aid collaboration.

National Autism Indicators Reports

One of the flagship projects from the National Autism Data Center is the National Autism Indicators Report series. These reports present our research findings in a clearly communicated, open-access, online format to speed the delivery of information to decision-makers while maintaining very high standards of scientific credibility.

Grant Preparation and Manuscript Collaboration

We are open to collaborating with investigators on grant submissions using National Autism Data Center human and data resources.