Top Things to Know: American Heart Association’s Strategic Approach to Promoting Blood Pressure Control
Updated: September 29, 2026
Prepared by Maggie Eaton, PhD, APRN, FNP
- Hypertension remains a major public health challenge in the United States, affecting more than 120 million adults, with low rates of awareness, treatment, and blood pressure control and persistent disparities across populations.
- Equitable blood pressure control is a central strategic priority of the American Heart Association, given hypertension’s role as a leading, preventable driver of cardiovascular morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs.
- This science advisory presents the American Heart Association Blood Pressure Control Logic Model as a unifying framework to coordinate and scale multi-sector efforts to improve blood pressure control across healthcare and community settings.
- The Logic Model is grounded in a socio-ecological perspective, emphasizing that durable improvements in blood pressure control require coordinated action across clinical care, public health, policy, education, and community and workplace environments.
- Effective hypertension prevention and control depend on alignment of data and measurement systems, organizational capacity, sustainable funding, scientific evidence, and cross-sector partnerships.
- The Logic Model organizes this work across four interrelated strategy domains: advancing research and policy, delivering culturally and linguistically appropriate education, improving clinical care quality, and activating community organizations and workplaces.
- Across these domains, American Heart Association-led programs and partnerships generate outputs such as clinical practice guidelines, scientific statements, advocacy and policy tools, educational resources, quality improvement programs, and national initiatives that support evidence-based blood pressure control.
- Culturally and linguistically appropriate education is critical in improving knowledge, self-management behaviors, and connection to care, particularly among populations disproportionately affected by hypertension.
- Clinical quality improvement initiatives, including Target: BP™ and the National Hypertension Control Initiative, demonstrate scalable, guideline-based approaches that can improve blood pressure control and reduce disparities across diverse care settings.
- Sustained improvements in blood pressure control and reductions in cardiovascular events require ongoing multi-sector collaboration, rigorous evaluation, and adaptation of the Logic Model to diverse organizations and communities.
Citation
Commodore-Mensah Y, Bellows BK, Smith AP, Flynn JT, Pressley A, Honeycutt S, Sanchez E, Abdalla M, Nesbitt S; on behalf of the American Heart Association Council on Hypertension; Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; Council on Clinical Cardiology; Council on the Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease; and Stroke Council. American Heart Association’s strategic approach to promoting blood pressure control: a science advisory from the American Heart Association. Published online September 29, 2026. Hypertension. doi: 10.1161/HYP.0000000000000266