Biden Details New Efforts to Advance Women’s Health Research
- March 22, 2024
President Biden unveiled March 19 an executive order and a series of new initiatives aimed at advancing women’s health research, a move he previewed in his State of the Union address.
Biden has proposed that Congress invest $12 billion in new funding for women’s health research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would use the funding to advance an interdisciplinary research agenda and to establish a nationwide network of research centers devoted to women’s health, the White House said.
The Executive Order “direct[s] the most comprehensive set of executive actions ever taken to expand and improve research on women’s health,” according to an administration fact sheet.
The order calls for better integration of women’s health research and data standards across the federal research portfolio, including requiring relevant agencies to ensure women’s health is being considered at every step in the research process.
In addition to requiring agencies to prioritize funding for women’s health research, the order also directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National Science Foundation to study ways to leverage artificial intelligence to advance women’s health research.
Under the order, HHS also must expand data collection efforts for women’s midlife health, launch a comprehensive research agenda in menopause-related research, and develop new resources to help women better understand their options for menopause-related symptoms prevention and treatment.
The White House also announced new agency initiatives to promote women’s health research. For example, in fiscal year 2025, NIH will devote $200 million to catalyze interdisciplinary research and launch research projects such as on the impact of menopause on heart, brain, and bone health.
NIH also is launching an effort to identify and develop common data elements for women’s health to “enable more meaningful data collection, analysis, and reporting.”
The Food and Drug Administration plans to issue industry guidance on including women in clinical trials and conduct outreach to discuss ways to advance women’s health. And the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will ramp up efforts to ensure new medical services and technologies work well in women before being covered nationally by Medicare.
“This will help ensure that Medicare funds are used for treatments with a sufficient evidence base to show that they actually work in women, who make up more than half of the Medicare population,” the White House said.