Developmental Origins of Hypertension: Life-Course and Intergenerational Opportunities for Prevention

December 1–2, 2026

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute is hosting the virtual workshop “Developmental Origins of Hypertension: Life-Course and Intergenerational Opportunities for Prevention” on December 1–2, 2026. This workshop is organized in collaboration with the Office of Research on Women’s Health, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Office of the Director’s Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes. Xiaobin Wang, M.D., M.P.H., Sc.D. (Zanvyl Krieger Professor, Director, Center on the Early Life Origins of Disease, Professor of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine) and Kent Thornburg, M.S., Ph.D., FAPS (Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, Former Director, Center for Developmental Health and M. Lowell Edwards Chair of Cardiovascular Research, Oregon Health & Science University) are the workshop co-chairs.

Registration for this workshop is free and required to attend. 

Background:

Hypertension is the leading modifiable and preventable risk factor for cardiovascular disease and a major contributor to premature death worldwide. Once regarded as an adult disease, the American Heart Association has highlighted the growing burden of pediatric primary hypertension and the need for earlier detection, prevention, and optimal management. Primary hypertension is multifactorial, and whether it becomes apparent in childhood or adulthood, growing evidence supports developmental origins that begin well before clinical onset, although the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Beyond genetic susceptibility, developmental programming during critical early-life windows may influence blood pressure regulation, sex-specific risk, and intergenerational susceptibility. Relevant factors include maternal and paternal cardiometabolic health, pregnancy complications (e.g., preeclampsia), nutritional imbalance, environmental chemicals, psychosocial stress, adverse birth outcomes (preterm, fetal growth restriction), and postnatal exposures. Important gaps remain regarding the relative contributions and interactions of intergenerational, prenatal, and early-childhood factors, as well as possible transgenerational epigenetic mechanisms related to prior-generation environmental and lifestyle exposures. Defining these modifiable early-life determinants and mechanisms could help transform the hypertension paradigm from detection and treatment after blood pressure elevation toward primordial and precision prevention, earlier risk identification, and precision management across the life course and generations.

This workshop will convene a multidisciplinary group of scientists, clinicians, epidemiologists, and public health experts to advance understanding of the developmental origins of hypertension, with a focus on identifying influential early-life factors, mechanisms, and opportunities for hypertension prevention across the life course and generations. The workshop will identify scientific gaps, evaluate current tools and data resources, and define future research priorities for early hypertension risk assessment, early detection, and early intervention.

Goals and Objectives:

• Assess current challenges, unmet needs, and opportunities for improving early detection, diagnosis, screening, and longitudinal monitoring of hypertension in children, adolescents, and young adults.
• Identify critical gaps in basic, clinical, and epidemiological science related to genetic, epigenetic, environmental, nutritional, and maternal-fetal determinants and resilience factors to early-onset hypertension, including prenatal, perinatal, and early-life exposures, pregnancy complications, and adverse birth outcomes.
• Evaluate priority data resources, technologies, and analytic approaches, including AI-enabled methods, to advance understanding of the relative contributions and interactions of risk factors across the life course and generations.
• Define high-priority research opportunities to inform early risk prediction, prevention, early detection, and early intervention for hypertension, and to accelerate clinical and public health translation.

Event Details:

📅Dates: December 1–2, 2026 

💻Virtual Workshop: A link to join the virtual workshop will be sent closer to the meeting. Registration for the workshop is free but is required to attend. 

Contact:

For questions or to request reasonable accommodations to participate in this event, please email Julia D’Albora at dalborajc@nih.gov.