For years, women experiencing unexplained pain, extreme fatigue or changes in their menstrual cycles have sometimes struggled to receive a clear diagnosis. Symptoms may be dismissed as stress, hormonal changes or simply part of getting older.
For conditions such as endometriosis, this can mean years of appointments, tests and uncertainty before patients finally receive an explanation.
Now, the US government is promising to address some of the problems that have left women's health conditions overlooked or poorly understood.
On October 19, 2026, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a new women's health division within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the country's leading federal medical research agency.
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The initiative, championed by First Lady Melania Trump, also creates a White House task force intended to coordinate research, improve diagnosis and help new treatments reach patients.
According to Al Jazeera's coverage of the announcement, the new division must be established within 90 days.
The plan could eventually influence how diseases affecting millions of women are studied and treated. However, the executive order does not specify how much additional money will be available to achieve those goals.
A new division will focus on diseases that have received less attention
The executive order, titled Advancing Women's Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life, identifies several areas where the administration believes more research is necessary.
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These include conditions that predominantly affect women, such as endometriosis, uterine fibroids, infertility and menopause.
But the initiative extends beyond reproductive health.
The official executive order published by the White House also identifies cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, autoimmune disorders, mental health conditions and chronic pain as priorities.
The goal is to improve healthcare throughout women's lives, from childhood and adolescence to pregnancy, menopause and old age.
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According to the order, the new division will work with existing research organizations to identify gaps in medical knowledge, support scientific studies and accelerate the development of better diagnostic tools and treatments.
It will also encourage researchers to examine how biological differences between women and men influence diseases and responses to treatment.
This matters because symptoms, disease progression and medication effects can differ between sexes, and those differences have not always been adequately studied.
Melania Trump outlined five priorities for the initiative
During the announcement at the White House, Melania Trump described the new initiative as an important moment for women's healthcare.
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"This is a transformative moment for women in America. Beginning today, we will change the reality of women's health," she said.
The first lady also presented five priorities intended to guide the government's work.
According to Fierce Healthcare's report on the executive order and the White House's official statement, the initiative aims to direct more research toward conditions affecting women, accelerate scientific discoveries through advanced technology, bring promising treatments to patients more quickly, improve affordability and encourage more open discussion of women's health.
One of the more unusual elements is the proposed use of artificial intelligence.
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The administration believes AI and other advanced technologies could help researchers identify patterns in medical data, better understand female biology and develop new approaches to diagnosis and treatment.
In theory, these technologies could help scientists analyze large collections of medical records or identify biological connections that might otherwise be difficult to recognize.
However, the executive order does not establish a specific AI research program or identify which technologies will receive funding.
Those decisions will depend on how the initiative is implemented.
Why women's health research has fallen behind
The announcement comes amid longstanding concerns that medical research has not always adequately addressed conditions affecting women.
Historically, women were frequently underrepresented in certain types of clinical research, meaning treatment recommendations were sometimes developed using evidence collected predominantly from men.
That has had consequences for understanding how diseases appear and progress in women.
Heart disease is one example. Although it is a leading cause of death among women, symptoms can sometimes differ from those traditionally associated with heart attacks.
Women may experience chest discomfort, but they can also report symptoms such as nausea, unusual fatigue, shortness of breath or discomfort in the back and jaw.
This can make recognizing heart problems more complicated, particularly when symptoms do not match familiar expectations.
As STAT News reported following the announcement, improving women's health research has become an increasingly important issue, particularly as scientists call for better understanding of sex-specific differences in disease.
The new initiative seeks to address some of these gaps by encouraging research that includes women and girls and examines whether medical treatments work differently depending on biological sex.
Endometriosis shows why better research matters
One of the conditions specifically identified in the executive order is endometriosis.
The disease occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, potentially causing inflammation, severe menstrual pain, chronic pelvic discomfort and fertility problems.
According to the World Health Organization, endometriosis affects approximately 190 million women and girls of reproductive age worldwide, equivalent to around 10 percent of that population.
Despite how common the condition is, diagnosis can be delayed for years.
Some women experience symptoms that are mistaken for ordinary menstrual discomfort, while others struggle to find appropriate specialist care.
There is currently no cure, although several treatments can help manage symptoms and improve quality of life.
Research has also raised questions about whether endometriosis may be connected to health problems beyond the reproductive system.
As previously reported by Welltica, a large observational study involving nearly three million people found that women diagnosed with endometriosis had a 46 percent higher relative risk of subsequently developing type 2 diabetes.
The researchers could not establish that endometriosis directly caused diabetes, but the findings highlighted how much remains unknown about the disease's wider effects on the body.
This is the type of research gap the new American initiative is intended to address.
Better understanding of conditions such as endometriosis could eventually lead to earlier diagnosis, more targeted treatment and improved long-term care.
A White House task force will coordinate the work
The executive order also establishes a new group called the White House Women's Health Task Force.
It will be co-chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
The group will bring together representatives from several federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
Its purpose is to improve coordination between different parts of the federal government.
For example, one agency might fund research into a new treatment, while another oversees its approval or works on improving access to healthcare services.
The administration wants these processes to become better connected, potentially reducing the time between a scientific discovery and its use in everyday medical care.
The task force held its first working session on October 19, the same day the executive order was signed.
However, establishing a government task force does not automatically mean that patients will receive new treatments or faster diagnoses.
Those improvements will depend on the decisions made in the coming months and years.
The United States already has an office dedicated to women's health research
An important detail is that the new division will not be the first federal organization dedicated to women's health research.
The NIH already has an Office of Research on Women's Health, which was established in 1990.
According to the NIH's official history of the office, it was created partly because women had been inconsistently included in clinical research, leaving important gaps in medical knowledge.
The office has spent more than three decades encouraging research into women's health and improving the inclusion of women in scientific studies.
The new division is intended to work alongside this existing office rather than replace it.
The difference is that the administration wants the new division to place greater emphasis on connecting research with practical improvements in diagnosis, prevention and treatment.
But precisely how the responsibilities will be divided between the two organizations has not yet been fully explained.
That will be one of the questions to address as the new division takes shape.
The new plan also replaces an initiative from the Biden administration
The executive order includes another significant change that was not emphasized during the initial announcement.
It formally revokes two measures introduced under former President Joe Biden: a 2023 memorandum establishing a White House women's health research initiative and a March 2024 executive order intended to strengthen research and innovation.
The earlier initiative, championed by former First Lady Jill Biden, also sought to address longstanding gaps in women's health research.
According to Associated Press, the Biden administration previously said its efforts had attracted nearly $1 billion in federal funding commitments.
The Trump administration argues that its new approach goes further by placing additional emphasis on technology, coordination and turning research into treatments.
However, the decision to replace the previous framework has raised questions about which research programs will continue and how existing efforts will fit into the new structure.
The order does not state that the NIH's existing Office of Research on Women's Health will close.
Instead, the new division is explicitly instructed to work with it.
One major question remains unanswered: How much will it cost?
Perhaps the most important unanswered question concerns funding.
Although the executive order repeatedly emphasizes the need for stronger research and faster medical progress, it does not specify a new budget for the women's health division.
The Department of Health and Human Services is instructed to cover the administrative costs of the White House task force, but no specific amount is allocated for additional research projects.
This matters because medical research can require substantial and sustained investment.
Developing a new treatment may involve years of laboratory work, clinical trials and safety evaluations before patients can use it.
Experts have also questioned how the initiative will fit alongside broader changes to federal research funding during Trump's second administration.
Reporting by STAT and Al Jazeera has highlighted previous reductions in research staff and funding, as well as concerns that some women's health projects have been affected by those changes.
Supporters of the new initiative argue that better coordination and greater use of technology could help make research more effective.
Critics, meanwhile, question whether creating another government division will produce meaningful improvements without dedicated funding and sufficient scientific staff.
Both questions will become clearer once the administration outlines how the new department will operate.
What could this mean for women waiting for a diagnosis?
For women living with poorly understood conditions, the initiative offers the possibility of more attention being directed toward diseases that have historically received insufficient research.
If successfully implemented, the new division could support better diagnostic tools, improve understanding of treatment differences between women and men, and encourage more research into conditions such as endometriosis, menopause and chronic pain.
The White House also wants scientists to collect better information about how diseases affect women at different stages of life.
That could eventually help doctors recognize symptoms earlier and choose treatments that better reflect each patient's needs.
However, none of these improvements is guaranteed by the executive order alone.
The directive does not immediately change existing medical guidelines, introduce new screening programs or make additional treatments available to patients.
Instead, it establishes a framework that federal agencies must now put into practice.
The NIH has until approximately mid-January 2027 to establish the new division, giving the administration a relatively short period to decide how it will be organized.
The next important development will be whether the government announces new research funding, identifies specific projects and explains how progress will be measured.
For women who have spent years searching for answers to persistent symptoms, more research could eventually make a meaningful difference.
But the true impact of the initiative will depend on what happens after the announcement: whether scientific investment increases, whether promising discoveries lead to better treatments, and whether patients actually receive better care.
For now, the executive order represents a new commitment to women's health research, with many of the practical details still to be determined.
This article is made and published by Aksel Kryhlmand, who may have used AI in the preparation.