The Pentagon is investing half a billion dollars to research medical issues that disproportionately affect women in military service, officials said Monday.
The initiative was announced by First Lady Jill Biden at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. The program will fund $500 million in Pentagon research on topics like rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue, eating disorders, and gynecological cancers,
As Pentagon researchers focus on women’s health issues, its researchers will also have to design their medical studies to consider how results may vary if for research done on men versus studies that include more women. Researchers should “consider sex as a biological variable in study design and analysis” in order to better understand “known and potential sex differences in disease prevalence, presentation, and outcomes,” officials said. The policy goes into effect Oct. 1 and will apply to research applications submitted for topics that are directed by Congress.
The funding comes after the White House launched its own initiative on Women’s Health Research in February, aiming to address the long-standing gap of women’s issues in medical research. Research looking at diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women has been underfunded and understudied, leading to a lack of knowledge and solutions that didn’t consider their impacts on women, according to the White House website on the initiative.
The announcement follows other Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs initiatives and programs focused on improving women’s health.
One study published in 2021, highlighted in the new initiatives, was supported through a grant from the Defense Health Agency and showed the birthing benefits of using certified nurse midwives over physicians. The study was published in Sage Journals, an online journal that publishes academic research and found a higher percentage of vaginal births with midwife delivery over physicians, who delivered more babies via cesarean sections. Researchers also found fewer complications and inductions but more breast feeding with midwife deliveries.
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Uniformed Services University – which has undergraduate medical programs comparable to those at the U.S. Military Academy West Point, U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado – established their own Military Women’s Health Research Program in 2023 to fund grants, sponsor publications and encourage women’s participation in a small business and university funding program. The university also established a group focused on best practices for women’s clinical care which has supported research on interventions for physical and emotional pain due to uterine fibroids, treatment for low back pain, and the effects of prenatal mental health support.
In 2024, the Defense Department and VA established a research partnership to collaborate on studies to further women’s health research and improve care for women service members, veterans, spouses, dependents and family caregivers. The working group also holds two mini residencies with outside experts to teach VA and DoD mental health providers about gender-specific and gender-informed care on topics like reproductive mental health, eating disorders, intersectionality, emotional regulation and sexual health.
The DoD and VA have also created a working group focused on midlife concerns specific to women such as menopause and cardiovascular health.