Federal Hypertension Leadership Council (The Council)

Dec. 13, 2024

The Council convened in late 2020 to make equitable hypertension control a national priority. It aims to inspire, coordinate, and accelerate action to improve equitable hypertension prevention, detection, and control.

Collage of people of different ages and ethnicities.

Guiding vision

Controlling hypertension for all Americans will save lives, improve health and resilience, and reduce costs.

The Council

In response to the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Control Hypertension, the Council made equitable hypertension control a national priority. Founding members of the Council include 12 federal agencies and offices under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS):

In addition to fueling collaborations among member agencies and offices, the Council is a valuable source of expertise on hypertension for relevant HHS priorities, including social factors to include rural health and maternal health.

Action framework with three objectives

(Initial priorities are in bold.)

Improve prevention.

Increase access to affordable, lower-sodium food options.
Increase access to safe places to be active, participation in lifestyle programs, and implementation of physical activity guidelines.
Build communities with equitable access to affordable, healthy food and safe places to be active.

The Council’s Physical Activity Action Plan outlines strategies Council members can use to build on existing efforts and focus on promoting healthy behaviors, especially increased physical activity.

Improve detection.

Find undiagnosed patients "hiding in plain sight," e.g., by using electronic health record diagnostic algorithms.
Advance clinicians' use of validated blood pressure monitors for diagnosis.
Build and expand community-based settings to detect hypertension and refer people with hypertension to medical care.

Improve control.

Increase use of team-delivered treatment protocols that support changing or increasing medicine when hypertension remains uncontrolled. This will help people with hypertension have a healthier lifestyle, and reducing differences in treatment among patient groups.
Improve patients' ability to take medicine as it's prescribed by lowering the costs, making it simpler to remember how to take it, and using best practices.
Increase the use of self-measured (or out-of-office) blood pressure monitoring.
Recognize and reward high performance and improvement by individuals in health care settings, clinical and community teams, and health care systems.
Connect people to care using community-based screenings.

Each strategy was drafted based on its impact, feasibility, opportune timing, and potential HHS agency ownership.

Hypertension 101

Hypertension is common; control is not. Nearly half of adults have hypertension (119.9 million). About 1 in 4 adults with hypertension have their hypertension under control (27.0 million).1
Hypertension harms. Uncontrolled hypertension puts millions of people at risk for largely preventable events and conditions, such as heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, heart failure, dementia, and severe pregnancy complications, which raise a woman's lifetime risk of heart disease.2
Hypertension is costly: Annual costs associated with high blood pressure were an estimated $219 billion in the United States in 2019.3
Hypertension is controllable. We know 'how' to prevent, detect, and control hypertension. It's time to ensure that best and promising practices—including those that address inequities resulting in disparities—are adopted, expanded, and spread across the country.

The Council welcomes new members from across and beyond HHS. For more information or to join the Council contact FedHTNCouncil@cdc.gov.

Hypertension resources from Council members