Families facing complex childhood health challenges deserve opportunities to ask questions and explore emerging research. Our friends at Documenting Hope are bringing together researchers, practitioners, and families for the Health & Healing Expo, November 21–22, 2026, at Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, Florida, with an online attendance option. Below, we explore some of the questions shaping these conversations.
ANH-USA is an event affiliate and will receive a portion of registration proceeds when you sign up through our link.
Why are so many American families navigating autism and sudden, debilitating changes in their children’s behavior? Why has the medical mainstream got so few answers?
CDC surveillance identified autism in approximately 1 in 31 eight year-olds in 2022, compared with just 1 in 150 in 2000. Greater awareness, broader diagnostic criteria and improved identification contribute to this increase; but clinicians and families across America are aware something untoward is going on that cannot be explained only by changes in diagnostic patterns.
PANS—pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome—and its strep-associated subtype, PANDAS, present a different picture: abrupt obsessive-compulsive symptoms, restricted eating and other dramatic changes. While official figures are lacking, clinicians and families are again on the front lines of what appears to be a dramatic increase in such conditions among America’s children.
Whether we’re talking about autism or PANS/PANDAS, most theories point to the causes being related to a disruption of the deeply interconnected nervous, immune, endocrine and gastrointestinal systems.
Asking whether these conditions are “genetic or environmental” misses the interplay between biological and genetic susceptibility and modern life’s exposures—in other words epigenetic mechanisms. Research is beginning to identify an increasing range of factors associated with our 21st century lifestyles that contribute to the rise of these conditions, including genetic predisposition, parental age and health, pollution and toxins, certain medications, and infections.
Understanding these connections opens important questions about prevention, earlier recognition, treatment, and personalized support.
Join the Documenting Hope Health & Healing Expo, November 21–22, 2026, in Orlando or online, to explore emerging research connecting the microbiome, immunity, nutrition, cellular energy and nervous system. Bring your questions, connect with researchers, practitioners and families, and help build a more informed, hopeful future for children.
ANH community members save $50 on general admission through October 15: use code 50OFF to bring the current $389 ticket price to $339.
Learn more and register through ANH-USA’s affiliate link.
ANH-USA will receive a portion of the proceeds from registrations made through this link, supporting our advocacy for natural health.
