Women's Health Research Agenda Research Articles

2025 SWHR Women's Health Research Agenda: Prioritizing Uterine Fibroids, Lupus, and Metabolism.

Women face unique and multifaceted challenges throughout their lifespans, shaped by biological, societal, and health care-related factors. These challenges have led to gender disparities in disease burden, access to care, and representation in medical research, underscoring the need to increase targeted investments in women's health. Historically, research on diseases that disproportionately affect women has been underfunded, hindering progress in closing gender health gaps. In March 2024, the President of the United States signed an Executive Order on Women's Health Research and Innovation, signaling a new commitment by the federal government to prioritize women's health research and address these disparities. The Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR) has consistently led the charge to identify research gaps and advocate for evidence-based initiatives to improve the health and well-being of women. In celebration of its 35th anniversary, SWHR introduces a 2025 Women's Health Research Agenda, which outlines key priorities in the areas of uterine health, autoimmune disease, and cardiometabolic health. This agenda serves as a strategic roadmap for stakeholders to engage with critical areas of women's health, fostering collaboration and accelerating research to address the unmet needs of women across the lifespan.

TriService Nursing Research Program: A critical component to support military nursing science

TriService Nursing Research Program: A critical component to support military nursing science

30 Years of Women's Health Issues

30 Years of Women's Health Issues

Monitoring the Implementation of the National Institutes of Health Strategic Plan for Women's Health and Sex/Gender Differences Research: Strategies and Successes

Building upon the legacy of the previous two National Institutes of Health (NIH) women's health research agenda–setting reports,1,2 the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) released the third NIH scientific agenda for women's health and sex differences research in September 2010, entitled Moving Into The Future With New Dimensions and Strategies: A Vision for 2020 For Women's Health Research.3 Within NIH, ORWH is part of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, residing in the Office of the Director; ORWH is charged with coordinating women's health research in collaboration with the 27 Institutes and Centers (ICs) that make up NIH, each of which has a distinct mission and identity. Of note, the 2010 research agenda, or strategic plan, is the women's health research agenda for NIH overall, cutting across the missions of all the ICs. As such, it serves as a map to guide new efforts as well as continue collaborations within NIH in order to fulfill the NIH mission to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and to apply that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. Through the framework of the strategic plan, in partnership with the NIH ICs, the Office of the Director, and the Advisory Committees (Figure 1), ORWH leads efforts to meet this mission as it relates to women's health.

Women's health research agenda for the next decade. A report by the Women's Health Expert Panel of the American Academy of Nursing

Research in women’s health has regained momentum with the recent release of several reports from various institutes and organizations. The Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) of the National Institutes of Health and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) both reported on women’s health research. Within a year, Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act, stipulating support for clinical preventive services for women, prompting further reports focused on clinical care for women. These two research-dominant reports (NIH ORWH and the IOM) are the subject of this manuscript. The purpose is to outline and critically analyze the reports from a grounded nursing perspective and to propose a complementary and expanded agenda for furthering research in women’s health. A separate manuscript analyzes and makes recommendations based on additional reports about clinical services and policies that will benefit the health status of women.

Using Research to Transform Care for Women Veterans: Advancing the Research Agenda and Enhancing Research–Clinical Partnerships

The purpose of this paper is to report on the outcomes of the 2010 VA Women's Health Services Research Conference, which brought together investigators interested in pursuing research on women veterans and women in the military with leaders in women's health care delivery and policy within and outside the VA, to significantly advance the state and future direction of VA women's health research and its potential impacts on practice and policy. Building on priorities assembled in the previous VA research agenda (2004) and the research conducted in the intervening six years, we used an array of approaches to foster research-clinical partnerships that integrated the state-of-the-science with the informational and strategic needs of senior policy and practice leaders. With demonstrated leadership commitment and support, broad field-based participation, strong interagency collaboration and a push to accelerate the move from observational to interventional and implementation research, the Conference provided a vital venue for establishing the foundation for a new research agenda. In this paper, we provide the historical evolution of the emergence of women veterans' health services research and an overview of the research in the intervening years since the first VA women's health research agenda. We then present the resulting VA Women's Health Research Agenda priorities and supporting activities designed to transform care for women veterans in six broad areas of study, including access to care and rural health; primary care and prevention; mental health; post deployment health; complex chronic conditions, aging and long-term care; and reproductive health.

Kudos Corner

Dr Henry-Tillman was recently appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This committee assists the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) and the NIH in addressing scientific, legal, and ethical issues affecting the health of the nation's women through biomedical and behavioral research and related career opportunities. The ORWH was established in 1990 by the NIH and statutorily mandated by Congress in 1993 as a mechanism for eliciting advice and recommendations on priority issues affecting women's health research. Advisory committee members are expected to provide guidance in such areas as refinement of the NIH's women's health research agenda, exploration of questions regarding gender difference in clinical drug trials, development of methodologies that enhance research on health needs of women, and monitoring the inclusion of women in clinical trials funded by the NIH. The director of the Office of Research on Women's Health is Dr Vivian W. Pinn, former president of the National Medical Association.

Defining Women's Health: A Dozen Messages from More than 150 Ethnographies

Although the women's health research agenda has been largely defined by Western biomedicine and public health, anthropology has much to offer in terms of defining and understanding women's health from the perspective of women themselves. Through the in-depth qualitative tradition of ethnography, anthropologists have documented women's health concerns around the globe, producing a large and constantly expanding literature that is rich and provocative. This article summarizes a dozen major messages about women's health that emerge from the ethnographic literature, now consisting of more than 150 volumes. These volumes are listed in the article, and some primary examples are described as representative of anthropology's contribution to knowledge production in women's health.

Improving health care for women veterans

Improving health care for women veterans

The health and health care of women veterans

The health and health care of women veterans

The U.S. Women's Health Research Agenda for the Twenty-First Century

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe U.S. Women's Health Research Agenda for the Twenty-First CenturyNancy Fugate WoodsNancy Fugate Woods Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 25, Number 4Summer, 2000Feminisms at a Millennium Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/495559 Views: 5Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 2000 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Deniz Unal, Zekai Halici, Zuhal Altunkaynak, Osman N. Keles, Elif Oral, Bunyami Unal A New Hypothesis about Neuronal Degeneration Appeared after a Rat Model of Menopause, Neurodegenerative Diseases 9, no.11 (Jan 2012): 25–30.https://doi.org/10.1159/000329721Nancy Fugate Woods Women's health: The view as we near 2010, International Journal of Nursing Studies 45, no.1111 (Nov 2008): 1563–1564.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2007.10.011

News from the Society for Women's Health Research: SAM IX: more information on sex-based differences.

The Society for Women's Health Research is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to improving the health of women through research. The Society was founded in 1990 to bring national attention to the problem of the exclusion of women from clinical trials and the need for greater federal funding for diseases and conditions prevalent in and unique to women. Today, the Society works closely with members of the public and private sectors and academic institutions to promote a women's health research agenda. The Society seeks to both shape public policy and improve public and professional education. The Journal of Women's Health & Gender-Based Medicine is the official publication of the Society. We welcome your views. Contact us by fax at (202) 833-3472, or visit our website at http://www.womenshealth.org.

News from the Society for Women's Health Research: exploring breakthroughs and busting myths through "Women at Risk".

The Society for Women's Health Research is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to improving the health of women through research. The Society was founded in 1990 to bring national attention to the problem of the exclusion of women from clinical trials and the need for greater federal funding for diseases and conditions prevalent in and unique to women. Today, the Society works closely with members of the public and private sectors and academic institutions to promote a women's health research agenda. The Society seeks both to shape public policy and improve public and professional education. The Journal of Women's Health & Gender-Based Medicine is the official publication of the Society. We welcome your views. Contact us by fax at (202) 833-3472, or visit our website at http:// www.womens-health.org.

News Roundup

The Society for Women's Health Research is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to improving the health of women through research. Founded in 1990 as the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health Research, the Society aims to bring national attention to the problem of the exclusion of women from clinical trials and the need for greater federal funding for diseases and conditions prevalent in or unique to women. Today, the Society works closely with members of the public and private sectors and academic institutions to promote a women's health research agenda. The Society seeks to both shape public policy and improve public and professional education. The Journal of Women's Health & Gender-Based Medicine is the official publication of the Society. We welcome your views. Contact us by fax at (202) 8333472, or visit our home page at http://www.womens-health.org/.

The long view: how genetic discoveries will aid healthcare reform.

This article addresses social and ethical priorities on the agenda for women's health research in the next century. Specifically, the relevance of genetic discoveries for healthcare reform and why both topics ought to be among these priorities are discussed. If the present gap between diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases could be bridged, especially in such common diseases as cancer and heart disease, arguments for universal access to healthcare would be vastly strengthened. Important scientific and ethical problems are involved in bridging the gap, including volatile issues of research with human embryos and fetuses. Other issues deserve high priority on the women's health research agenda: adequate funding for biomedical research, maintaining an equitable number of women in clinical trials, and creating a knowledge base in gender-based biology. Progress in genetic research is clearly relevant to women's health for understanding and treating common diseases, as well as for reproductive decisions. Until recently, genetic services have been aimed exclusively at reproductive choices, including counseling, prenatal diagnosis, and carrier screening. However, the meaning of the term needs to be vastly broadened to include the uses of genetic information in mainstream medicine. Through genetic testing and DNA technology, it will be increasingly possible for physicians to have access to family history and a reliable profile of each patient's genetic health risks. Drugs will be designed that will be responsive to individual genetic variability and risks for disease. If scientific and ethical obstacles are overcome, there may also be effective human gene therapy to correct mutations and prevent lifelong harm. In my view, linking the agenda for women's health research with the unfinished social task of ensuring access to adequate primary and preventive care, which foreseeably will include genetic services and human gene therapy, strengthens the agenda and promotes solidarity with the needs of the majority of Americans. This link will help to prevent political and moral isolation of women's health research.

Sex and gender bias in animal research and in clinical studies of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and depression.

Annals of the New York Academy of SciencesVolume 736, Issue 1 p. 21-48 Sex and Gender Bias in Animal Research and in Clinical Studies of Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, and Depressiona JERI ALTNEU SECHZER, JERI ALTNEU SECHZER Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038Search for more papers by this authorVITA CARULLI RABINOWITZ, VITA CARULLI RABINOWITZ Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038 Department of Psychology Hunter College City University of New York New York, New York 10021Search for more papers by this authorFLORENCE L. DENMARK, FLORENCE L. DENMARK Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038Search for more papers by this authorMICHAEL F. McGINN, MICHAEL F. McGINN Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038Search for more papers by this authorBRUCE M. WEEKS, BRUCE M. WEEKS Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038 Department of Psychology Hunter College City University of New York New York, New York 10021Search for more papers by this authorCARRIE L. WILKENS, CARRIE L. WILKENS Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038 Department of Psychology Hunter College City University of New York New York, New York 10021Search for more papers by this author JERI ALTNEU SECHZER, JERI ALTNEU SECHZER Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038Search for more papers by this authorVITA CARULLI RABINOWITZ, VITA CARULLI RABINOWITZ Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038 Department of Psychology Hunter College City University of New York New York, New York 10021Search for more papers by this authorFLORENCE L. DENMARK, FLORENCE L. DENMARK Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038Search for more papers by this authorMICHAEL F. McGINN, MICHAEL F. McGINN Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038Search for more papers by this authorBRUCE M. WEEKS, BRUCE M. WEEKS Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038 Department of Psychology Hunter College City University of New York New York, New York 10021Search for more papers by this authorCARRIE L. WILKENS, CARRIE L. WILKENS Department of Psychology Pace University New York, New York 10038 Department of Psychology Hunter College City University of New York New York, New York 10021Search for more papers by this author First published: December 1994 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1994.tb12816.xCitations: 24 a This work supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (SBE-9121772), the National Institute of Mental Health, and the City University of New York—Women's Research Development Fund (777–268). AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume736, Issue1Forging a Women's Health Research Agenda: Policy Issues for the 1990sDecember 1994Pages 21-48 RelatedInformation

Keynote address.

Annals of the New York Academy of SciencesVolume 736, Issue 1 p. 171-173 Keynote Address RUTH W. MESSINGER, RUTH W. MESSINGER Borough President of Manhattan 1 Centre Street, 19th Floor South New York, New York 10007Search for more papers by this author RUTH W. MESSINGER, RUTH W. MESSINGER Borough President of Manhattan 1 Centre Street, 19th Floor South New York, New York 10007Search for more papers by this author First published: December 1994 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1994.tb12830.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume736, Issue1Forging a Women's Health Research Agenda: Policy Issues for the 1990sDecember 1994Pages 171-173 RelatedInformation

Sexually transmitted diseases.

Annals of the New York Academy of SciencesVolume 736, Issue 1 p. 102-113 Sexually Transmitted Diseases LYNN BORGATTA, LYNN BORGATTA Planned Parenthood of Westchester and Rockland, Inc. 175 Tarrytown Road White Plains, New York 10607Search for more papers by this author LYNN BORGATTA, LYNN BORGATTA Planned Parenthood of Westchester and Rockland, Inc. 175 Tarrytown Road White Plains, New York 10607Search for more papers by this author First published: December 1994 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1994.tb12822.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume736, Issue1Forging a Women's Health Research Agenda: Policy Issues for the 1990sDecember 1994Pages 102-113 RelatedInformation

Cardiovascular disease in women: what's different? What's new? What's unresolved?

Annals of the New York Academy of SciencesVolume 736, Issue 1 p. 147-157 Cardiovascular Disease in Women: What's Different? What's New? What's Unresolved? MARIANNE J. LEGATO, Corresponding Author MARIANNE J. LEGATO Department of Medicine Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons New York, New York 10032Address correspondence to: Marianne J. Legato, M. D., 962 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10028.Search for more papers by this author MARIANNE J. LEGATO, Corresponding Author MARIANNE J. LEGATO Department of Medicine Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons New York, New York 10032Address correspondence to: Marianne J. Legato, M. D., 962 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10028.Search for more papers by this author First published: December 1994 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1994.tb12827.xCitations: 4AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume736, Issue1Forging a Women's Health Research Agenda: Policy Issues for the 1990sDecember 1994Pages 147-157 RelatedInformation

Breast cancer in the United States.

Breast cancer is a major health problem in the United States. The causative factors are not known so the prevention of breast cancer remains difficult. Treatment advances have taken place over the last 30 years to allow for less radical surgery and breast-conserving procedures. Now a woman who finds a small breast cancer does not have to face mastectomy as her only option. This will allow women to seek medical advice early if they find a breast mass. Although the breast-conserving procedures have been shown to be as effective as mastectomy their use is still low in the United States. The reasons for the preponderance of mastectomies are unclear. The future hopes for breast cancer are: (1) discovery of the causative factors so that a preventive method can be established; (2) more effective chemotherapy against established tumors; and (3) the discovery of markers of the aggressiveness of tumors so that the appropriate patients can be treated after surgery. With the increased public awareness of the magnitude of the health problem that breast cancer represents more funds are being earmarked for breast cancer research. In the near future we can hope medical scientists will be able to make the necessary strides to bring the disease under control.