Announcing a lecture by Prof Paul Whelton - Managing High Blood Pressure: The Way Forward

4 May 2023

The College of Medicine and Health is looking forward to welcoming Professor Paul Whelton to UCC on Tuesday 16th May when he will deliver a lecture on Managing High Blood Pressure: The Way Forward.

Tuesday 16th May

1pm - 2pm

Lecture Room G.04

Brookfield Health Sciences Centre

University College Cork

Refreshments will be served afterwards in the The Jennings Gallery. All are welcome.

If you would like to attend Prof Whelton's lecture, please email comh@ucc.ie by noon on Friday 12th May.

Link for online access to the lecture: 

This is a hybrid lecture - if you would like to join Prof Whelton online via Zoom, please click here. 

Abstract

Managing High Blood Pressure: The Way Forward 

Paul K. Whelton, MB, MD, MSc

High blood pressure (BP) is the most important preventable risk factor for prediction of mortality and burden due to disability-adjusted life years. Accurate measurement of BP and assessment of underlying cardiovascular disease risk are necessary for determining the optimal approach to treatment of high BP with lifestyle change and/or antihypertensive drug therapy. Most guidelines recommend a treatment systolic BP (SBP) target <120-130 mm Hg in clinical settings but worldwide estimates suggest achievement of an average treatment SBP <140 mm Hg in <14% of adults (<8% in low- and middle-income countries). Much better results have been obtained with a treatment model that incorporates a commitment to specific actions that include health promotion, accurate BP measurement, convenient community-based patient-center team care, reliable access to effective and affordable antihypertensive medications, use of simple evidence-based treatment protocols, and tracking systems coupled with case-management. This is the approach being employed in the WHO HEARTS initiative, which has already been implemented in >30 countries, worldwide.

Biography

Professor Paul Whelton, the Show Chwan Professor of Global Public Health at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine

Professor Paul Whelton's research interests include cardiovascular and renal disease epidemiology, prevention, clinical trials, health policy, and global health.

He has led many of the major NIH-funded blood pressure intervention trials, including the Trials of Hypertension Prevention (TOHP, Phases I and II), the Trial of Nonpharmacologic Intervention in the Elderly (TONE), the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT), and the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT).

He chaired the 2017 ACC/AHA Guideline Writing Committee for Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Management of High Blood Pressure, as well as many working groups and committees for institutes at the NIH, the American Heart Association, the Institute of Medicine, the Irish Government, and the Show Chwan Health System in Taiwan.

Amongst many awards and honors, he received the American Heart Association Population Research Prize, Excellence Award for Hypertension Research, and Distinguished Scientist designation.

Most recently, he received the prestigious Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) St Patricks Day Science Medal that recognises excellence in research and innovation. He has published almost 600 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 70 books, book chapters, supplements, or monographs. His manuscripts have been cited in almost 140,000 other publications.