On 19 October 2026, US President Donald Trump signed the executive order "Advancing Women's Health for Improved Outcomes Across the Lifespan." The ceremony took place in the Rose Garden of the White House in the presence of First Lady Melania Trump.
The document directs the Department of Health and Human Services to create, within 90 days, a new women's health division at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It will work alongside the already existing NIH Office of Research on Women's Health.
The order also establishes the first-ever White House Task Force on Women's Health. Its co-chairs will be Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
The division will focus on studying diseases that particularly often affect women: cardiovascular diseases, cancer, autoimmune conditions, endometriosis, fibroids, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian dysfunction syndrome, infertility, maternal health, menopause, Alzheimer's disease and osteoporosis.
Melania Trump, whom the president called the originator of the idea, stressed the need to use artificial intelligence to accelerate discoveries, to increase the availability and accessibility of treatment, and to reduce the taboo around women's health topics. "Our generation will fight to find cures," she stated.
The new order rescinds previous Biden administration directives on this topic. Instead, the emphasis is placed on translating scientific results into clinical practice and on strengthening the accounting for sex as a biological variable in funded research.
The initiative spans all stages of life — from childhood to healthy aging — and envisions coordination of efforts by several federal agencies. Trump noted that the division will help "truly tackle understudied diseases that affect women."
