In this introduction to the Handbook of DOHaD and Society, we provide an overview of the biosocial research field of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD). We first trace the evolution of this interdisciplinary field over the past two decades, charting the historical conditions that have brought DOHaD to a critical moment when the field is at a threshold of interdisciplinary innovation across both life and social sciences. We then discuss the biosocial perspective that DOHaD offers as its central premise and promise, allowing for questions of socio-environmental justice, discrimination, and equity to be centred in science and biomedicine. We explore the challenges that complicate this biosocial agenda in practice and attend to questions of research translation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the socio-cultural dimensions of DOHaD-based health interventions. We end by highlighting the transformational potential of the DOHaD research paradigm and how this handbook offers a toolkit for robust interdisciplinary research in this field.

In the last decade, scholars in the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) have increasingly engaged in translating the field’s insights into policy and society. Several multidisciplinary advocacy groups have been formed to promote women’s reproductive health as well as maternal and child health. They have framed DOHaD in different ways in order to attract policy attention. Framing is the practice of contextualising and interpreting the meaning of research results in various communication activities. Overall, DOHaD has often been shown to exhibit a narrow focus on individual responsibility and translation at the clinician–patient interface instead of focusing on wider socio-economic, cultural, and political factors influencing health in its framing activities. In this chapter, we examine two case studies of multidisciplinary networks (the Venice Forum and UK Preconception Partnership) and explore how they have framed DOHaD findings when communicating with and for policymakers. We analyse the social valences of these framings and make recommendations for framing DOHaD in ways that better align with social justice and health equity goals.