Biden signs executive order, announces actions to improve women’s health

Key takeaways:

• The executive order directs actions to expand and improve women’s health in the U.S.
• The Biden administration also announced actions and commitments by federal agencies to promote women’s health research.

On March 18, President Joe Biden signed an executive order and announced new actions to improve women’s health research and innovation in the U.S., according to a White House press release.

As Healio previously reported, the Biden administration announced the first-ever White House initiative to improve funding and approaches for women’s health research in the U.S. in November. This effort was led by first lady Jill Biden, EdD, and the White House Gender Policy Council and aimed to address gaps in women’s health knowledge, including prevalent women’s health conditions and diseases and conditions associated with perimenopause and menopause.

The new executive order will direct a comprehensive set of executive actions to expand and improve women’s health by ensuring integration and prioritization across the federal research portfolio and budget. The order aims to inspire new research on a wide range of topics, including midlife health, according to the release. The executive order directs the Office of Management and Budget and the Gender Policy Council to lead efforts in assessing gaps in federal women’s health research funding and identifying changes required to support women’s health research across the federal government. Agencies will be required to report their women’s health research investments and progress toward efforts to improve women’s health annually.

In addition, in his State of the Union address, Biden called for Congress to invest $12 billion in new women’s health research funding. According to the release, this investment will be used to create a fund for women’s health research at the NIH to advance research and establish a new nationwide network of research centers, which would then serve as a national “gold standard” for women’s health research across the life span.

The Biden administration also announced more than 22 new actions by U.S. federal agencies, including the NIH, FDA, CDC, Environmental Protection Agency, CMS, HHS, Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Science Foundation.

According to the release, these actions and commitments are designed to promote women’s health research by:

• prioritizing and increasing women’s health research investments;
• fostering innovation and discovery in women’s health;
• expanding and leveraging women’s health data collection and analysis;
• strengthening coordination, infrastructure and training to support women’s health research; and
• improving women’s health across the life span.

According to the release, these actions build on the first lady’s announcement in February on the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Sprint for Women’s Health, which committed $100 million toward transformative women’s health research and development.