National Roadmap to Improve the Health and Mental Health of Autistic People

We are developing a National Roadmap to Improve the Health and Mental Health of Autistic People. This roadmap will address serious health inequities faced by autistic people in Australia.

About

The roadmap aims to address the breadth of issues faced by Autistic people in the Australian healthcare system. It will outline actions to improve the physical and mental health of Australia’s growing Autistic population.

The Australian Government is investing $1.5 million to develop the roadmap. This funding will support Autistic people, including through:

  • a collaborative co-design process
  • a thorough analysis of topics to be addressed in the roadmap.

The roadmap focuses on ways to progress the health and mental health outcomes, and is associated with National Autism Strategy, which is being developed by the Department of Social Services.  

Governance

The Minister for Health and Aged Care is responsible for developing the roadmap, including its final endorsement.

Health Roadmap Working Group

The Health Roadmap Working Group:

  • provides advice and oversees the roadmap’s development
  • ensures roadmap development is done in an inclusive way.

The working group includes a diverse range of stakeholders, including Autistic people and representatives from the autism community.

Read more about the working group, including the members.

Development

Development of the roadmap will be completed by the end of 2024.

During all stages of development, we will prioritise the involvement of the autism community. We will provide specific details about consultation and involvement as the roadmap develops.

Public Consultation

Feedback on the draft roadmap was sought from mid-August to end September 2024. The roadmap is now being revised following this consultation. 

Webinar

On Thursday 22 August the department held a webinar to explain more about the draft Autism Health Roadmap and answer your questions

Autism Health Roadmap Public Webinar

Co-design

We selected Autism CRC to lead the co-design work, along with a national group of autism specialised partner organisations, for the roadmap in September 2023. 

Autism CRC is a national independent collaborative research organisation focused on autism across the lifespan. 

The project included 5 workstreams with Autistic leadership throughout. The streams were:

  • focus groups and interviews
  • a stakeholder reference group
  • review of existing datasets about autism
  • review of consultation findings from the National Autism Strategy
  • a national health and mental health co-design summit.

The co-design summit included: 

  • 50 people meeting in Brisbane 
  • 25 people participating online.

Autism CRC:

  • analysed the project findings
  • prepared a report with 25 recommendations
  • provided these recommendations to us and the working group in February 2024.

Read the Autism Health Roadmap co-design project reports.

Contact

Autism roadmap contact

Contact for the the National Roadmap to Improve the Health and Mental Health of Autistic People
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