The need is now.

Changing the landscape
of women’s health

The Foundation for Women’s Health identifies the gaps in rigorous research of women's health and then funds the most promising studies to fill those holes, prioritizing upstream health innovations for adolescent girls and young women. We look at the funding landscape holistically across the entire continuum of the female life cycle to identify where funding opportunities do not currently exist, so that we can strategically and efficiently fill the holes in research and achieve gender equity in health.

Women were categorically excluded from clinical research trials in the United States until 1993, when the NIH Revitalization Act became federal law, requiring women and minorities to be included as subjects of health research.

Decades of exclusion of women as study subjects resulted in a gross inequity in rigorous research of women’s health that persists, 30 years later

FWH was created to fill the gaps in rigorous research of women’s health

While many insitutions fund specific women’s health issues, FWH looks at women’s health research across the entire life cycle to identify where the knowledge gaps exist, and then identifies the most promising clinical studies to fund to fill those gaps.

Our findings are disseminated not only through academic channels, but also through traditional and social media channels so that novel findings are translated into real-world application that affect women today.

The systematic exclusion of women has had fatal consequences and has led to incorrect dosing and treatment assumptions for women for very common diseases. We must start investing in women’s health by investing in the research required to address persistently unanswered questions.

We cannot rely on a public sector solution. Less than 11% of the NIH budget in 2023 was dedicated to women’s health research despite women representing 51% of the American population. Researchers can only pursue projects they can get funded, which is why, absent sufficient public funding, private funders need to increase opportunities for women’s health research.

The Foundation for Women’s Health is a lean and efficient grant-making organization. All Board members serve pro bono so that your funds can go directly to the research we urgently need.