USA: National Academies report calls for an NIH Institute dedicated to women’s health

For decades, knowledge gaps in women’s health research have left patients and clinicians with more unanswered questions and fewer medical breakthroughs, according to a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Society pays a price for this gap, the report stated, and addressing it will require $15.7 billion in new funding from Congress over the next 5 years.

Such an investment will help the National Institutes of Health (NIH) establish a new institute dedicated to women’s health, expand the field’s workforce, and support interdisciplinary women’s health and sex differences research throughout the 27 existing institutes and centers.

“There’s a dearth of studies for most female-specific conditions, leaving clinicians and patients without a path forward for diagnosis and treatment,” said Sheila Burke, BSN, MPA, cochair of the study committee and chair of the government relations and public policy department at the law firm Baker Donelson.

An average of just 8.8% of NIH spending from 2013 to 2023 focused on women’s health research, with the share of funding decreasing over time despite a steady increase in the overall NIH budget, the NASEM committee found. As a result, female-specific conditions such as endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, and uterine fibroids are underresearched.

Research is also lacking around menopause and pregnancy complications. Additionally, the committee highlighted the need for further investigations into conditions more common in women—such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis—and those that affect women differently than men, like heart disease.

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Source: JAMA Network, 27 December 2024