Women's Health Research Initiative

Elevating Women's Health Research

The American Physiological Society (APS) is proud to announce the 2024–2025 Women’s Health Research Initiative (WHRI). This initiative aims to elevate women's health and highlight the research conducted by APS members to address health and disease in women. Despite making up more than half of the population, women have been historically understudied and underrepresented in research, resulting in critical gaps that affect their health.

Focus Areas and Goals

The initiative focuses on increasing scientific understanding of conditions that are specific to women, predominantly affect women, or affect women differently than men. Our efforts are organized into four areas:

Virtual and Live Events

Participate in our women’s health research webinar series to learn more about late-breaking research, novel discovery, fundamental principles and research innovation in the field of women's health.
Join special events at the 2025 American Physiology Summit, and more.

Science Policy and Grassroots Advocacy

Urge Congress and other federal agencies to support increased federal funding for women's health research, which has been under-resourced.
Raise awareness about the disparity in resources dedicated to women’s health in government and industry.
Access new resources to educate policymakers on the importance of women’s health research and its societal impact.

“The more that investigators hear about the fact that there are gender differences, it’s going to raise awareness.”
Janie Reckelhoff, PhD, FAPS

APS Family of Journals

Explore and submit research on critical women's health topics in APS publications.
Engage with articles spotlighting women’s health research, including basic, translational and clinical physiology studies.
Access guidelines and methods to consider sex as a biological variable in APS journals.

Center for Physiology Education

Help students understand the effects of research inequities, such as the historical neglect of sex as a biological variable.
Develop resources for science educators to integrate women's health into medical school curricula.