President Donald Trump signed an executive order Oct. 19 directing the National Institutes of Health to create a Women’s Health Division within 90 days. The order also establishes a White House task force, led jointly by the health and human services secretary and the White House chief of staff, to coordinate federal work on women’s health.
The order revokes a March 2024 executive order and a November 2023 memorandum from the Biden administration that supported federal women’s health research efforts. The AP reported that the initiative had attracted nearly $1 billion in federal funding. That figure represented commitments and investments across agencies, rather than one fund: NIH had pledged $200 million, ARPA-H $100 million, and the Defense Department announced a $500 million commitment.
The new division will be placed within an NIH institute or center and work with the agency’s existing Office of Research on Women’s Health, which dates to 1990.. The order directs the division to review research on conditions that remain understudied, coordinate research across women’s life stages and improve the inclusion of women and girls in clinical trials. It also calls for stronger accountability in applying NIH’s existing policy requiring researchers to consider sex as a biological variable.
The order identifies a broad range of research areas, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune conditions, osteoporosis, mental health, chronic pain, endometriosis, fibroids, infertility, maternal health and menopause. It describes the initiative as covering health needs from infancy and childhood through pregnancy, midlife and aging. The division is also expected to help move research findings into prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
The task force will include officials from several federal departments and agencies, including Agriculture, Labor, Education, Veterans Affairs, NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The order permits the co-chairs to seek input from researchers, health professionals, community organizations, states, tribal nations and private-sector groups. The AP reported that the task force was expected to hold its first meeting on the day the order was signed.
First lady Melania Trump championed the initiative. At the signing, the president said the order would promote research and address diseases affecting women that have received too little attention, according to the AP. The White House says the effort is intended to improve coordination and speed the use of research in clinical care.
The Biden administration also proposed a $12 billion women’s health research fund, but that was a request to Congress, not an amount that was approved. Trump’s order does not set a specific research funding target. It directs HHS to cover the task force’s administrative costs and says implementation is subject to available appropriations.
The directive lays out new organizational and coordination responsibilities. Its effect on research and patient care will depend on how agencies carry them out and what funding is made available.
Sources: Executive order; White House fact sheet; Associated Press; NIH funding details; Defense Department commitment