This blog was recent as of 11:30 a.m. on Friday, April 3. SWHR will provide updates on additional budget documents that have been released in later blog posts.
On Friday, April 3, President Donald Trump released the administration’s long-awaited president’s budget for fiscal year (FY) 2027. While the president’s budget is officially due on the first Monday in February, this deadline is often missed.
The release comes at a pivotal moment on Capitol Hill as members of Congress work to finalize their respective budget priorities for the upcoming fiscal year (and notably, an election year) following a marathon FY 2026 cycle. That process was marked by the longest government shutdown in history and remains incomplete, with final appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security still unresolved.
While Congress controls federal spending and the president’s budget has no binding authority, it does serve as a key signaling tool to communicate the administration’s policy priorities and funding preferences. It can be particularly influential among lawmakers who share the president’s political alignment, helping to frame negotiations and set the tone for the months ahead.
Health and Medical Research Spending
The administration’s budget request proposes $111.1 billion for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), representing a reduction of $15.8 billion – more than 12% – from the FY 2026 enacted level.
While important budget documents that will provide more insight into the administration’s priorities have yet to be released, among the most concerning elements of the HHS recommendations is the proposed $5 billion reduction to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). For decades, NIH has maintained strong bipartisan backing and broad public trust as a cornerstone of American medical innovation. The agency has been instrumental in advancing treatments, improving health outcomes, and maintaining the United States’ global leadership in biomedical research. Reductions of this magnitude risk slowing scientific progress and undermining long-standing investments in discovery and innovation. The budget also proposes, as it did in FY2026, eliminating the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), the Fogarty International Center (FIC), and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), raising concerns about the future of research focused on health equity and whole-person care.
The budget further proposes eliminating more than a third of the funding for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a move that would dismantle a critical source of evidence on health system performance, patient safety, and care quality. AHRQ has played a vital role in generating data that informs clinicians, policymakers, and health systems, and sustaining the agency is considered by many health care advocates as central for translating research into evidence-based, quality care.
At the same time, the budget prioritizes initiatives associated with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda, recommending allocating funds toward specific policy goals like nutrition services and preventive care. The public health community will undoubtedly be monitoring how the administration will balance these new initiatives with the changes it has proposed to the federal research infrastructure.
No Initial Mention of Women’s Health Research
While the budget appendix – which provides more information spending levels – mentions the NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) as part of the Office of the Director, there is no additional information about the Office or women’s health research in either the appendix or the overarching budget document.
Greater insight into the administration’s plans surrounding women’s health research is likely to come to light as additional budget documents are released. The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) remains concerned about the administration’s continued proposed cuts to medical research and public health infrastructure. If adopted, these cuts would have lasting consequences for research, particularly women’s health research, and health outcomes for American citizens. We urge Congress to once again reject the proposed cuts to medical research funding, reaffirming bipartisan support for sustained investment in medical research. Further, SWHR hopes to see the executive branch prioritize and incorporate women’s health research across the federal research ecosystem.
As next steps in the budget process, members of Congress and appropriations committee leadership will continue evaluating their funding priorities for FY 2027, and the public health and scientific communities will be waiting for additional budget documents to learn how the administration would choose to allocate funding in FY 2027. SWHR will continue to monitor for these documents and will share more information as it becomes available.
For questions, please contact SWHR’s Policy Team at policy@swhr.org.