Trump Order Creates NIH Women’s Health Division and Task Force

President Trump signed an executive order Monday that directs the National Institutes of Health to stand up a dedicated Women’s Health Division within 90 days and creates a White House task force to push research on conditions that mostly or only affect women into everyday medical care.

First Lady Melania Trump, who championed the order, announced it at the White House. “Beginning today, we will change the reality of women’s health,” she said, according to STAT.

The order, titled Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life, lists the conditions it wants studied harder: heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, osteoporosis, mental health, chronic pain, endometriosis, fibroids, infertility, maternal health, menopause, neurological disorders and aging. Many of those fall hardest on older women, the group that makes up the majority of nursing home residents and family caregivers in the United States.

What does the executive order actually do?

Two things. First, it tells the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the NIH director, to establish a Women’s Health Division inside an existing NIH institute or center. The division is supposed to coordinate research on understudied women’s health conditions, fund replication studies, push new diagnostic technology, get more women and girls into clinical trials, and hold grant recipients accountable for the NIH policy that requires research to account for sex as a biological variable.

Second, it creates a White House Women’s Health Task Force, co-chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The roster includes the FDA commissioner, the CDC director, the NIH director, the head of ARPA-H, the CMS administrator, the VA secretary and the EPA administrator. HHS will cover the task force’s administrative costs. STAT reported the group held its first session Monday.

“For generations, women have faced unanswered questions about conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect them,” Kennedy said in a statement quoted by Fierce Healthcare. “This new NIH division will confront those questions with gold-standard science, accelerate research into prevention and treatment, and turn medical discoveries into better care for women and girls across America.”

Does the new division replace the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health?

No. The order says the division will work in coordination with the Office of Research on Women’s Health, which has existed since 1990, and an NIH spokesperson told STAT the existing office is not being replaced. What is being replaced is the previous administration’s framework: the order revokes President Biden’s March 2024 executive order on women’s health research and the November 2023 memorandum that created the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research.

Details that matter to researchers and hospitals are still missing. The order does not say which institute will house the division, how large it will be, or how much money it will control. Like most executive orders, it is “subject to the availability of appropriations,” meaning Congress still decides the budget. Trump himself said Monday he had been surprised to learn NIH had no women’s health division. “Who the hell wouldn’t have a women’s health division?” he said, according to STAT.

Why women’s health research is getting this attention now

The gap the order describes is real and well documented. Women were largely excluded from clinical trials until federal rules changed in the 1990s, and conditions like endometriosis, fibroids and menopause have historically drawn a fraction of the research dollars spent on diseases that affect both sexes. The order’s own text says that “many diseases and conditions that disproportionately or uniquely affect women have not received the level of research, clinical attention, and treatment that other diseases and conditions have received.”

The politics are more complicated. NIH funding has been under pressure since early 2025, with proposed cuts and reorganizations, and STAT noted that grants mentioning women drew extra scrutiny during the administration’s review of “gender ideology” in federal spending. Monday’s order is the administration’s answer to critics who say women’s health was collateral damage in that fight. Whether it changes the money, not just the org chart, will be the test.

What this means for you

• Patients: nothing changes at the doctor’s office this week. The order sets up structures and priorities; new studies, guidelines and treatments take years. The clearest near-term signal is a stated federal priority on menopause, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s and heart disease in women, which affects how NIH scores grant applications.
• Caregivers and senior care providers: several of the named conditions, including Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis and stroke, dominate the care needs of older women. Expect more federally funded trials seeking older female participants, something nursing homes and home care agencies are often asked to help recruit for.
• Researchers and health systems: watch for the NIH announcement naming the division’s home institute, due by mid-January 2027, and for task force hearings and roundtables, which the order authorizes. Those are the venues where funding priorities will be set.
• Employers and insurers: the task force is directed to advise agencies on pilot programs that integrate prevention and early intervention. Coverage changes, if any, would come through CMS rules later, not from the order itself.

HNC has followed the administration’s reshaping of federal health agencies closely, including the consolidation of HHS offices under the Administration for a Healthy America and Kennedy’s broader healthcare reform agenda. Monday’s order is the first of those moves aimed squarely at women’s health.

Frequently asked questions