Office of Research on Women’s Health

About ORWH Putting Science to Work for the Health of Women For more than 30 years, the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) has served as the focal point for women’s health research at NIH. Situated within the NIH Office of the Director, ORWH works in partnership with the other NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs) to promote the prioritization of women’s health across research portfolios, the inclusion of women in research populations, and the consideration of sex and gender as critical factors in health and disease. Since its inception, ORWH also has developed innovative strategies to recruit, retain, and support women in the biomedical workforce. ORWH leads a diverse portfolio of research programs, policy and planning initiatives, events, and resource development aimed to stimulate and advance research that improves the health of women from head to toe and across the lifespan, positively impacting the health of all. Together with NIH, ORWH envisions a world in which… All womeni receive evidence-based disease prevention and treatment tailored to their own unique needs, circumstances, and goals; Women, people of all ages, and underrepresented racial and ethnic groups are appropriately represented in clinical research populations; Sex and gender are considered at every stage of biomedical research and health care delivery; and All women in scientific career fields are empowered to reach their full potential. Each aspect of this vision is deeply interconnected with the others. In order for women to receive medical care tailored to their needs, clinicians must have access to and awareness of scientific data that describe the influences of sex and gender in various diseases and conditions, such as sex-based differences in symptom presentation or treatment response. To discover and disseminate information from these data, women must be included in research and researchers must intentionally consider sex and gender as factors in their research design, analysis, and reporting of biomedical studies. In addition, greater research focus is needed about women’s health issues such as endometriosis, menopause, and menstrual disorders to improve their diagnostics and clinical treatment options. Because workforce studies indicate that women scientists are more likely than their male counterparts to conduct research in these areas, supporting women’s careers in the biomedical workforce is critical for advancing research on the health of women.