Policy implications of a new National Institutes of Health Agenda for Women's Health Research, 2010-2020.

September 27, 2010, marked the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The respon­ sibilities of the ORWH include advising the NIH director on matters relating to research on women’s health; strengthening research related to diseases, disorders, and conditions that affect women; ensuring that NIH research adequately addresses women’s health; ensuring that women are appropriately repre­ sented in research supported by NIH; enhancing recruitment, retention, reentry, and advancement of women in biomedical careers; and directly supporting research on women’s health issues in partnership with the institutes and centers (NIH, 2009). Indeed, the 1990s marked a proliferation of focused efforts to marshal research resources aimed at informing and refining our understanding of sex and gender issues across the spectrum of healthdfrom basic science to clinical research to health services and health policy research. In addition to the NIH, several U.S. government agencies established offices and agencies to support these efforts (Mazure, Arons, & Vitale, 2001), most notably: