Skip to agency navigation
Skip to main content

Official website

of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

    The .gov means it's official.

    Local, state, and federal government websites often end in .gov. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania government websites and email systems use "pennsylvania.gov" or "pa.gov" at the end of the address. Before sharing sensitive or personal information, make sure you're on an official state website. 

    Pennsylvania Autism Surveillance Project (PASP)

    Logo for the Pennsylvania Autism Surveillance Project (PASP)

    The Pennsylvania Autism Surveillance Project (PASP) is a cross-agency collaboration between the Pennsylvania departments of Human Services (DHS), Education (PDE), and Health (DOH).

    PASP is conducting public health surveillance as part of the Autism Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, under funding provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    The ASERT Collaborative will provide support and partner with DHS throughout this collaboration. Learn more about this partnership by reading the Sharpiro Administration's announcement.

    What is ADDM?

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) fund the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, which is based at 16 sites around the US.

    These sites seek to conduct public health surveillance based on combinations of medical and education record reviews contributing to the CDC national prevalence rate of autism and other developmental disabilities.

    Learn more about the CDC's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network

    PASP Related Pages

    Contact PASP

    • Principal Investigator: Amy Alford
    • Project Coordinator: Heidi Arva
    • Address: 555 Walnut Street Harrisburg, PA 17101
    • Email: RA-PWPASP@pa.gov
    Use arrow keys to choose tabs. Content for the chosen tab will be revealed below.

    What is Public Health Surveillance?

    • Public health is the science of understanding, protecting, and improving the health of people and their communities by collecting, compiling, and sharing data about topics that impact health.
    • Public health surveillance is a specific way that conditions or diagnoses are counted in communities. By examining how often a condition or diagnosis occurs in a specific area across different groups, estimates of how often conditions or diagnoses occur can be generated.
    • Data included in the 2025 reports contain information from children aged 4-year-olds and 8-year-olds residing in Delaware county in 2022.

    What are the goals of PASP?

    • Improve early detection of autism.
    • Improve service delivery for autism across the lifespan.
    • Increase coordination of care for children with disabilities across their schools and health care.
    • Provide resources to families.
    Silhouette of hands making a heart

    How does PASP work?

    Trained PASP staff review existing evaluation records from health and educational sources in the PASP surveillance area.

    This information is used to obtain as complete a count as possible of the number of 4- and 8-year-old children with autism in the surveillance area.

    A child high-fiving a doctor.

    The PASP benefit PA communities

    • Autism Trends and Services Increased understanding of trends and differences in identifying youth with an autism diagnosis and how they access services that they need.
    • Where the Needs Are Data about prevalence can help to understand specific areas of need that have been identified across conditions, including if and how families recognize developmental delays, reach out for an assessment, and access the services their child may need, including transportation to and from appointments.
    • Other Conditions with Autism Data can also provide important information about diagnoses that co-occur with autism, such as intellectual disability and mental health conditions which may change or broaden the services that children and adolescents need and use.
    • Help from DHS Services Provides linkage to information and DHS supports and services.