Thursday, July 10, 2025 – The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) sent a letter to leadership of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives Appropriations Committees to express its concern around recent threats to the biomedical research infrastructure and funding, specifically potential cuts to the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) budget, which could severely impact women’s health research.
SWHR was joined on the letter by more than 100 signatories, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Women’s Association, Endocrine Society, WomenHeart, Alliance for Aging Research and other key stakeholders. The Society and its partners are encouraging congressional appropriators to continue investing in federal research, and specifically in women’s health research.
“Funding for the NIH in particular has been a longstanding bipartisan priority, with members of Congress across party lines championing NIH as the crown jewel of federal investment,” the letter states. The NIH has made significant contributions to our understanding of health and disease, specifically in promoting research on sex-based differences in diseases to optimize women’s health. This knowledge has been instrumental in saving lives, and continued investment will be paramount to drive the medical breakthroughs of tomorrow.
An example of this work, which is highlighted in the letter, is The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), a multi-site longitudinal, epidemiological study designed to examine the health changes women experience during midlife and the impact this life stage has women’s overall health. Funding for this study, along with the unique collaborations across NIH’s Institutes and Centers, has provided critical insight into issues like cognitive decline for women in midlife, changes to body composition during menopause, and the role of midlife in women’s physical function and health, among other crucial women’s health topics. The critical and long-term data from studies like SWAN – which represent decades worth of carefully collected and analyzed information – cannot be replicated or restarted once funding is cut; funding cuts compromise the continuity of data and the context under which the data was originally gathered The value of longitudinal studies like SWAN lies in its ability to collect uninterrupted, long-term insights into the health of individuals over an extended period of time, and cutting funding to such studies means that these irreplaceable insights are lost.
The president’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposed a 40% cut to NIH, and many lawmakers on Capitol Hill are exploring potential cuts in upcoming spending legislation. Difficult decisions will have to be made. However, investing in NIH yields significant economic returns. With every dollar invested in women’s health research, there is a potential return of $3 in economic growth, according to McKinsey.
The need for investment in understanding women’s health research across conditions and life stages that disproportionately, differently, or uniquely impact women cannot be ignored. While there has been great progress in championing women’s health research in recent decades, there are still significant gaps and research questions that need to be addressed.
As the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process continues, SWHR will continue championing essential U.S. research agencies as well as robust investments in women’s health research.