The National Institutes of Health and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Wednesday said Medicare and Medicaid private health data will be used for autism research.

The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have partnered to enable research around the root causes of the autism spectrum disorder by creating a database of Medicare and Medicaid enrollees with a diagnosis of the condition,

Federal public health agencies announced on Wednesday the start of a pilot program to share Medicare and Medicaid data with the National Institutes of Health to tackle chronic diseases, starting with autism.