President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order Monday to advance women’s health research as the nation continues to celebrate Women’s History Month.
The White House called it the “most comprehensive set of actions” a president has taken to advance women’s health research focused on diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women.
Biden previously hinted at the effort in his State of the Union address earlier this month, saying women’s health is chronically underfunded and creating 120 funds to support the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Women’s Health Fund. It asked Congress to approve $1 billion.
Here are some of the women’s health issues Biden wants to address with his executive orders:
Research focused on postmenopausal women’s health
Biden’s executive order will support research into midlife women’s health and diseases that are prevalent after menopause, such as heart disease and osteoporosis.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would be directed to increase data collection on women’s midlife health and find ways to improve management of menopause-related issues.
During menopause, your ovaries produce less estrogen, increasing your risk of developing certain health problems.
Heart disease is one of the most common health problems faced by women after menopause. Women have a lower risk of heart disease than men until age 55 because estrogen protects blood vessels and helps balance the body’s cholesterol levels.
When a woman produces less estrogen, her arteries become thicker and harder, which can lead to a buildup of “bad” cholesterol in the arterial walls, leading to heart disease.
According to HHS, by age 70, women have the same risk of heart disease as men of the same age. It also increases the risk of stroke.
Osteoporosis, a bone disease caused by loss of bone density and mass and structural changes in bones, is another risk faced by postmenopausal women. Decreasing estrogen levels after menopause can accelerate bone loss and increase the risk of fractures.
The number of older women in the United States with osteoporosis is unknown, but using World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, approximately 30% of postmenopausal white women have osteoporosis, according to the Johns Hopkins University Arthritis Center. It is estimated that there are.
Biden also said that under the executive order, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs will assess the needs of military women and veterans for midlife health issues, including menopausal symptoms.
More women participating in clinical trials
In the executive order, the president said members of the initiative will work to “improve the recruitment, enrollment, and retention of women in clinical trials, including reducing barriers through advances in technology and data science, as appropriate.”
Even in the 1970s, few women participated in clinical trials and women’s health needs were considered a low priority.
In 1986, the NIH established a policy to encourage women’s participation in research, but the policy was poorly communicated and applied inconsistently. Ultimately, Congress passed legislation in her 1993 establishing guidelines regarding the inclusion of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups in clinical research.
However, women remain underrepresented, especially in the early stages of clinical trials. One 2022 study found that women accounted for 29% to 34% of early-stage clinical trials due to fertility concerns. This can lead to a lack of understanding of how women respond to new drugs compared to men.
Another 2022 study by Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that women make up 60% of all patients with mental illnesses, but they are the most vulnerable to clinical trials studying drugs and devices to treat those illnesses. The participants were found to be only 42%. Similar findings were seen in research data from clinical trials in cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Diseases with different symptoms for men and women
Dr. Carolyn Mazure, chair of the White House Women’s Health Research Initiative, said at a press conference Sunday afternoon that the order also focuses on diseases that particularly affect women, such as Alzheimer’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
Women have a higher lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than men, in part because they live longer than men, according to a paper published in Harvard Medical School’s Harvard Health Publishing.
However, it is not known whether there are biomarkers or other unknown factors that make women more susceptible.
When it comes to rheumatoid arthritis (RA), women are up to three times more likely to be diagnosed with the disease than men. Although several factors, such as sex hormones, are thought to be involved, researchers are wondering why women are more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis and why different joints are affected in women compared to men. He says more research is needed to understand why.
ABC News’ Fritiz Farrow and Selina Wang contributed to this report.
