President Trump has signed an executive order creating a new division within the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force focused on women’s health. The initiative aims to address gaps in research and treatment for women’s health issues, with a promise to establish “a new standard for women’s health,” according to First Lady Melania Trump.
New NIH Division to Tackle Understudied Diseases
The NIH division will be established within 90 days and will work to streamline research into understudied diseases in women, advance innovation in diagnostics, and improve treatment. This division will operate alongside the existing Office of Research on Women’s Health, not replace it. The effort aligns with a predicted refresh of the NIH-wide strategic plan for women’s health research, which aims to emphasize innovative methods, technologies, and data science to prevent and treat conditions affecting women.
First Lady Melania Trump announced the initiative, stating, “Our generation will fight to find the cures to ensure a woman can live her life with health and to the fullest.” The division will prioritize expanding research on understudied women’s health conditions across all stages of life, improving diagnosis and treatment, strengthening the inclusion of women and girls in clinical trials, and increasing accountability for considering sex as a biological variable in NIH-funded research.
White House Task Force Led by Chief of Staff
The task force, led by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, held its first session on Monday. Members include cabinet secretaries such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth, acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, and Erica Schwartz, newly confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wiles, who recently completed breast cancer treatment, brings a personal perspective to the task force’s mission.
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The Department of Health and Human Services will cover the administrative costs of the task force. However, details about the NIH division’s funding and structure were not disclosed.
Addressing Historical Neglect in Women’s Health
Women’s health research has been a flashpoint since early in the second Trump administration, with scientists saying their work was in jeopardy because it fell in the blast zone of “gender ideology.” The word “women” in grants triggered special reviews at the NIH while the nation’s academic research was paralyzed by moves to slash funding or eliminate diversity mentions or both. Academics and investors have been looking elsewhere. Chronic underinvestment in women’s health calls for new funding structures, Basmah Safdar, an emergency medicine physician and director of Women’s Health Research at Yale, a center within Yale School of Medicine, wrote in a Lancet commentary published Aug. 17.
Historically, women have faced greater risks than men for adverse drug reactions, are more likely to die from undiagnosed strokes, and receive less effective treatments for chronic pain conditions, as summarized in a 2025 review published in Science Advances. Women are seven times more likely than men to have a heart condition misdiagnosed or to be sent home from a hospital during a heart attack, a landmark study said in 2000. If women are admitted to a hospital, they are less likely to leave with prescriptions to reduce their likelihood of another cardiac problem, research presented in 2024 said. These factors contribute to women being more likely to die after a heart attack.
Trump Highlights Initiative’s Importance
“Think of it: a women’s health division, and it hasn’t been done, but it’s been done under Trump,” he said, appearing to go off-script. “When I heard about it, I said, ‘Are you sure they don’t have that? Who the hell wouldn’t have a women’s health division?’ Melania said, ‘They don’t have it.’” The initiative comes amid calls for new funding structures to address chronic underinvestment in women’s health. Basmah Safdar, director of Women’s Health Research at Yale, emphasized the need for a biology-based framework to correct systemic gaps in healthcare, noting that the current system is built on incomplete science and missed opportunities.
