March 26, 2025—The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) issued the following statement in response to the prolonged removal of public health information from federal health agency websites.
In recent weeks, the Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) has grown increasingly concerned that critical women’s health resources, removed at the beginning of the administration transition, have yet to be restored. These tax-payer funded resources are a public good and should be accessible to all.
Beyond the fundamental right of American taxpayers to have access to this federally funded information, these resources play a crucial role in improving public health. They provide essential training and resources for researchers, supply data that inform scientific studies and allow health care providers to engage in shared decision-making, and produce evidence that empowers women and their families to make informed health care decisions.
The following represent just some of the federally supported women’s health resources that are still unavailable:
Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) Resources
- Sex as a Biological Variable: A Primer. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Sex as a Biological Variable (SABV) Policy makes clear NIH’s expectation that biological sex be included in research design, analysis, and reporting. Adhering to this policy strengthens our understanding of how biological sex influences health processes and outcomes. While information about the SABV Policy is available online, ORWH’s free online course on SABV—designed to help researchers account for and appropriately integrate SABV across all research phases—remains inaccessible. These instructional videos are invaluable not only for explaining SABV and NIH’s policy but also for guiding researchers on its effective application in scientific studies.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Resources
- FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) Health of Women Strategic Plan. The CDRH ensures the safety, effectiveness, and quality of medical devices and radiation-emitting products. In 2022, the CDRH released its Health of Women Strategic Plan, furthering FDA’s commitment to improving the health of women, strengthening regulatory science, and addressing current and emerging issues in medical device research and regulation for the health of all women.
- Guidance: Enhancing the Diversity of Clinical Trial Populations–Eligibility Criteria, Enrollment Practices, and Trial Designs. This FDA guidance emphasizes the importance of clinical trial populations reflecting the population(s) they are intending to serve. It provides recommendations on designing and effectively running clinical trials that include people with different demographic characteristics, such as sex, race, and ethnicity, and non-demographic characteristics, such as people living with comorbid conditions.
- Guidance: Evaluation of Sex-Specific Data in Medical Device Clinical Studies. This document outlines FDA’s expectations regarding sex-specific patient enrollment, data analysis, and reporting in medical device clinical studies. It aims to improve data quality and consistency, promote appropriate enrollment by sex, and ensure studies analyze and report results in a sex-specific manner, benefitting researchers as well as patients and health care providers.
Every day that these resources are unavailable leads to continued setbacks for public health, scientific progress, and informed decision-making. Restoring public access to federally supported women’s health and other public health data and training materials is essential for advancing research, improving health outcomes, and upholding the public’s right to information, as well as ensuring transparency in use of taxpayer dollars. SWHR urges the administration to immediately make these materials available publicly to the millions of Americans who rely on them.