Women’s Health Goes Beyond Reproduction, NIH Review Explains

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The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) published a summary of their programs, policies, and scientific advances today in JAMA. The review also touched on the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, which has raised nearly $1 billion since its launch in November 2023. Its conference was held last month at the White House. Additionally, the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Research on the Health of Women 2024–2028 was released at the beginning of 2024, both of which were integral advancements in women’s health, the review states.

The NIH established the ORWH in 1990 to expand women’s health research. Women in medical research have historically been underrepresented, due to the antiquated belief that men’s and women’s bodies function the same, apart from reproduction and sex-specific conditions. Endometriosis is an example one such condition and is linked to increased ovarian cancer risk, often diagnosed seven to 10 years after symptoms emerge, the review explains.

Ongoing NIH funding and research mean that women now represent more than half of the population in clinical studies and that male and female animals are used in preclinical research. Chromosomal and hormonal differences between men and women have also been discovered and expanded upon.

Cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in women in the United States, is an example of a non-reproductive disease that disproportionately affects women. This is partly because women are more likely to experience dizziness, lower back pain and nausea, than typical male symptoms such as shortness of breath and chest pain. This leads to an underdiagnosis and undertreatment of heart disease in women, of which 60 million women currently have.

A woman’s Alzheimer’s risk is also double that of a man’s risk. Additionally, 80% of autoimmune patients in the United States are also women.

HIV is another area of healthcare inequality for women, specifically for Black women. In 2020, there were an estimated 250,000 women living with HIV in the United States and 5,000 of those cases were newly acquired. Although Black women only make up 7.7% of the U.S. population, they account for 54% of new HIV infections.

“Science is an iterative process: each solution leads to more questions,” a team of researchers including corresponding author Janine A. Clayton, M.D., associate director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health said in the review. “By harnessing the power of scientific. research to address the health of women, evidence essential for data-driven decision-making, targeted interventions and comprehensive approaches to closing knowledge gaps to improve the health of all women and girls can be generated.”