LOS ANGELES, CA — First Lady Jill Biden visited Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Friday to tour research laboratories as part of the White House’s new Initiative on Women’s Health Research.
The new initiative officially launched last month and aims to fundamentally change how the United States conducts and funds research on women’s health to close the investment and knowledge gap between men’s and women’s healthcare.
“The researchers and the doctors here at Cedars Sinai, show us what it looks like to invest in women’s health to build a medical world that meets the needs of everyone,” the First Lady said. “There’s so much more that we all can do, so much more to discover, and that’s why we have to start now. Because women deserve better today.”
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Pairing with the initiative, President Joe Biden issued a Presidential Memorandum asking federal agencies to look at their programs and how they serve women’s health needs. On Dec. 28, the White House will review the recommendations to inform necessary policy changes needed to advance women’s health research.
During her speech at the event, the First Lady emphasized the need for more research on heart disease as it is the leading cause of death for women in the country. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra joined Biden in calling for dedicated research on women’s health, particularly for underserved populations. Becerra said his department will work to gain more funding and support on conditions and diseases that impact women more than men.
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“We’re changing the issue to a human being’s world, rather than a man’s world. If we do that right, we will elevate and equalize the research and funding for research that lets us know better about women as we do about men,” Becerra told Patch.
Going forward, this initiative will help health institutes have an easier time requesting federal funds to further their research on women’s health issues, such as cardiovascular disease, Becerrasaid. This will allow for more intentional research that will, in turn, lead to more women’s lives being saved, he added.
“Through this new White House initiative, we will help Women’s Health Research catch up to where it should have been all along,” the First Lady said. “We will write new stories about women’s health care, ones where women leave their doctor’s offices with more answers than questions, where no woman or girl has to hear ‘it’s all in your head.'”
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