About Office of Research on Women's Health

Putting Science to Work for the Health of Women

For more than 30 years, the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) has served as the focal point for women’s health research at NIH. Situated within the NIH Office of the Director, ORWH works in partnership with the other NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs) to promote the prioritization of women’s health across research portfolios, the inclusion of women in research populations, and the consideration of sex as a critical factor in health and disease. Since its inception, ORWH also has developed innovative strategies to recruit, retain, and support women in the biomedical workforce. 

ORWH leads a broad portfolio of research programs, policy and planning initiatives, events, and resource development aimed to stimulate and advance research that improves the health of women from head to toe and across the lifespan, positively impacting the health of all.

 

Established in 1990, ORWH became the first Public Health Service office dedicated specifically to promoting women’s health. It was established by then–NIH Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) William F. Raub, Ph.D., in response to congressional, scientific, and advocacy concerns about the inconsistent and infrequent inclusion of women in NIH-supported clinical research and the lack of research on women’s health. This widespread lack of inclusion of females in clinical trials and resulting evidence gap meant that many clinical decisions about female health care were based on findings from studies of male participants—without evidence that these findings were generalizable. In 1993, Congress affirmed the establishment of ORWH in statute by the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 (Public Law No. 103-43, Section 486), assigning the office a far-reaching mandate, including:  

  • Advise the NIH director and staff on matters relating to research on women’s health
  • Strengthen and enhance research related to diseases, disorders, and conditions that affect women
  • Ensure that research conducted and supported by NIH adequately addresses issues regarding women’s health
  • Ensure that women are appropriately represented in biomedical and bio-behavioral research studies supported by NIH
  • Develop opportunities and support for recruitment, retention, reentry, and advancement of women in biomedical careers
  • Support and advance rigorous research that is relevant to the health of women
  • Ensure NIH-funded research accounts for sex as a biological variable (SABV) 

ORWH’s mission is multifold:  

Together with NIH, ORWH envisions a world in which…  

All women receive evidence-based disease prevention and treatment tailored to their own unique needs, circumstances, and goals;

Women are appropriately represented in clinical research populations;  

Sex is considered at every stage of biomedical research and health care delivery; and

All women in scientific career fields are empowered to reach their full potential.  

Each aspect of this vision is deeply interconnected with the others. In order for women to receive medical care tailored to their needs, clinicians must have access to and awareness of scientific data that describe the influences of sex in various diseases and conditions, such as sex-based differences in symptom presentation or treatment response. To discover and disseminate information from these data, women must be included in research and researchers must intentionally consider sex as a factor in their research design, analysis, and reporting of biomedical studies. In addition, greater research focus is needed about women’s health issues such as endometriosis, menopause, and menstrual disorders to improve their diagnostics and clinical treatment options. Because workforce studies indicate that women scientists are more likely than their male counterparts to conduct research in these areas, supporting women’s careers in the biomedical workforce is critical for advancing research on the health of women.  

 

ORWH Today

Despite great progress and advancements in women’s health research, much work remains to be done. Women continue to be disproportionately affected by many diseases and conditions, such as autoimmune diseases and chronic pain. Women are also differently affected by many diseases and conditions, presenting different symptoms and responding differently to treatments and thereby underscoring the criticality of considering sex as a biological variable in all forms of health research and treatment development. Furthermore, female-specific conditions such as endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome continue to be understudied areas despite significant disease burden. ORWH remains dedicated to identifying research gaps and galvanizing efforts to address them. Recent areas of focus include maternal health, women’s mid-life health and menopause research, HIV, and the burden of chronic disease among women, particularly that of autoimmune diseases (see OADR-ORWH). Learn more about current NIH priorities and efforts related to women’s health in the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Research on the Health of Women 2024-2028.