Trump Executive Order Creates New NIH Division and Task Force on Women's Health

President Trump signed the order Monday, according to STAT. It directs the NIH to set up the new division within 90 days. It also creates a White House task force on women's health. First lady Melania Trump announced the effort and said it would set "a new standard for women's health."

According to the first lady's remarks and an NIH spokesperson who spoke to STAT on background, the division is meant to streamline research into understudied diseases in women, improve diagnosis and treatment, and strengthen the inclusion of women and girls in clinical trials. It would also increase accountability for considering sex as a biological variable in NIH-funded research. That phrase means checking whether a treatment works differently in women and men, rather than assuming the results are the same.

The NIH spokesperson said the division would expand and coordinate research on understudied women's health conditions across all stages of life. That wording could cover the years around menopause. But the sources we reviewed do not name menopause or midlife specifically. Whether those topics become priorities is not yet known.

The order does not replace the NIH's existing Office of Research on Women's Health. Details about how the new division will be organized were not disclosed. No dollar amount was announced. According to the order, the Department of Health and Human Services will pay the administrative costs of the task force.

The task force will be led by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed a round of breast cancer treatment. Members include Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas and Erica Schwartz, the newly confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its first session was set for Monday.

The announcement follows a rocky stretch. STAT reports that women's health research has been a flashpoint since early in the second Trump administration. Scientists said their work was at risk because it fell within the reach of the administration's actions on "gender ideology." The word "women" in grants triggered special reviews at the NIH. Research funding more broadly was cut or frozen.

The gaps the order targets are well documented. STAT cites a 2025 review in Science Advances saying that historical neglect leaves women at greater risk than men for adverse drug reactions, more likely to die from undiagnosed stroke, and given less effective treatments for chronic pain. A landmark 2000 study found women were seven times more likely than men to have a heart condition misdiagnosed or to be sent home during a heart attack. Research presented in 2024 found women admitted to a hospital were less likely to leave with prescriptions to lower the risk of another cardiac problem.

These are the kinds of problems that matter for healthy aging. Heart disease, stroke and chronic pain all become more common as people get older. Better evidence on how they develop and are treated in women could shape care in the decades after midlife. That is an interpretation, not a promise made in the order.

Some researchers have already been looking elsewhere for support. Basmah Safdar, director of Women's Health Research at Yale, wrote in a Lancet commentary on Aug. 17 that chronic underinvestment in women's health calls for new funding structures. In June, NIH official Nicole Kleinstreuer said a refreshed NIH-wide strategic plan for women's health research was expected this fall, with an emphasis on innovative methods, technologies and data science.

What to watch next

The structure and budget of the new NIH division when it is set up within 90 days, and whether the refreshed NIH strategic plan names menopause and midlife health as research priorities.

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