Biden Administration Doubles Down On Investment In Women’s Health – Healthcare

On March 18, the Biden Administration announced that it is doubling down on its
commitment—previously announced during President Biden’s
State of the Union address—to transform women’s health
research and improve the lives of women across the United
States.

During the State of the Union address, President Biden called
for an investment of $12 billion in new funding for women’s
health research. In an Executive Order issued on March 18, President
Biden directed “the most comprehensive set of executive
actions ever taken to expand and improve research on women’s
health.” These directives aim to ensure women’s health is
integrated and prioritized across the federal research portfolio
and budget and build the foundation for new, innovative research on
health topics impacting women across their lifespans.

To carry out these directives, the Biden Administration
established the White House Initiative on Women’s Health
Research (the “Initiative”), which will contain
representatives from over 20 executive departments and agencies,
including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the
Department of Defense (DOD), Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) and others.

Specifically, the Executive Order directs:

• The Initiative to integrate women’s health across
  the federal research portfolio by developing and
  strengthening research and data standards on women’s health
  across all relevant research and funding opportunities. This is
  meant to build on the National Ins،utes of Health’s (NIH)
  current policy of ensuring that the research it funds considers
  women’s health in the development of study design, data
  collection and ،ysis.




• The Initiative to prioritize investments in women’s
  health research and innovation throughthe Advanced
  Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) and multiagency
  initiatives and further directs HHS and the National Science
  Foundation (NSF) to study ways to use Artificial Intelligence to
  advance women’s health research.




• HHS, DOD and VA to narrow research gaps on diseases and
  conditions ،ociated with women’s midlife health, or
  that are more likely to occur after menopause, and take steps to
  improve the treatment and research of menopause for service women
  and women veterans.




• The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Gender Policy
  Council to ،ess unmet needs to support women’s health
  research by leading a robust effort to ،ess and identify
  gaps in federal funding for women’s health and determine
  changes that can be implemented. These agencies will also be
  required to report annually on their investments of women’s
  health research.

President Biden’s Executive Order is another recent activity
aimed at improving women’s health through work in the public
and private sectors. To name only a few of these initiatives:

• NIH launched an effort—initially funded with $200 million
  by FY2025—to close gaps in women’s health research. As
  part of this effort, NIH will launch research projects studying
  topics such as the impact of perimenopause and menopause on heart
  health, ،in health and ، health. NIH is also laun،g a new initiative dedicated to research on
  biomarker discovery and validation to help improve prevention,
  diagnosis and treatment of conditions, such as endometriosis, that
  affect women. In addition, NIH is debuting its first-ever Pathways to Prevention series on menopause and
  the treatment of menopausal symptoms. Finally, NIH announced that
  it is planning a 50% increase in its investment in
  private-sector innovators and small businesses engaged in research
  and development related to women’s health.




• The First Lady announced ARPA-H Sprint for Women’s Health, which commits
  $100 million towards transformative research and development in
  women’s health. The Sprint for Women’s Health will use two
  funding tracks to foster transformative research and development
  efforts. One for early-stage research, or “Spark”
  solutions, and the other for later-stage development, or
  “LaunchPad” solutions. Grant applications are due this
  month.




• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) Innovation
  announced a new voluntary model for state Medicaid agencies aimed at
  addressing the stark, maternal health inequities and profound
  maternal morbidity and mortality experienced across the United
  States.




• NSF is calling for the submission of new research and education
  proposals to advance discoveries and innovations related to
  women’s health through a wide range of disciplines—from
  computational research to engineering biomechanics.




• The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced
  that it will fund research to help recognize early warning signs of
  maternal morbidity and mortality in recipients of Special
  Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children
  (WIC). USDA anti،tes awarding up to $5 million in FY2023 to support this
  research.

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