Women's Health Month 2026: Why Clinical Trials Need More Women

Every May, Women's Health Month puts a national spotlight on the conditions that affect women across the lifespan. The observance is anchored by National Women's Health Week, coordinated by the Office on Women's Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and runs alongside dozens of awareness campaigns covering heart disease and stroke, breast and ovarian cancer, maternal health, autoimmune disease, and menopause.

Public health campaigns raise awareness, but the medicines and approaches that actually address these conditions come out of clinical trials. And for most of the history of medical research in the United States, women have been underrepresented in those trials. Women's Health Month in 2026 is a useful moment to look at why that gap exists, where women's health clinical trials are active right now, and what it actually means to take part in one.

Why Women's Health Month Centers on Research Participation

National Women's Health Week, the central observance inside the broader month, has been observed each May for more than two decades. It is coordinated by the Office on Women's Health, a federal agency inside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and brings together hospitals, professional societies, advocacy groups, and community organizations around a simple idea: women should understand what care, screenings, and research options are available to them.

Clinical research participation sits at the center of that conversation in 2026 for a specific reason. The medications, devices, and procedures doctors offer today were developed and tested in clinical trials before they were approved. If those trials did not include enough women, or did not include enough women in different age groups, racial and ethnic backgrounds, or with different underlying conditions, the evidence base behind the care being offered today is incomplete for everyone outside the original study population.

For background on how clinical trials are designed and what participants experience, see Clinical Research Basics: What Every Trial Participant Should Understand Before Enrolling.

The Research Gap That Made This Month Necessary

For most of the twentieth century, women, especially women of childbearing potential, were routinely left out of clinical research. The reasoning was a mix of caution after the thalidomide birth defect tragedy of the late 1950s, concern about hormonal variability across the menstrual cycle, and an assumption that male physiology could stand in for female physiology in early-stage testing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration formalized this exclusion in a 1977 guidance document that explicitly recommended keeping women of childbearing potential out of early-phase studies.

That changed in 1993, when the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act required that women and members of racial and ethnic minorities be included in NIH-funded clinical research, with very limited exceptions. The FDA and other regulators have built on this in the decades since, including more recent updates focused on pregnancy and lactation research and on diverse enrollment more broadly.

The legacy of the earlier exclusion has not fully unwound. Several drug classes have shown different effectiveness, different metabolism, or different side effect profiles in women than were observed in earlier trials that were predominantly male. Heart disease has been one of the most documented examples. Conditions that disproportionately affect women, including endometriosis, autoimmune diseases, and migraine, took longer to attract serious research funding. Closing the remaining gap depends on women continuing to take part in research.

For a fuller account of how the gap formed and how it has narrowed, see History of Women in Clinical Trials.

Where Women's Health Clinical Trials Are Active in 2026

Women's health clinical trials in 2026 span more condition areas than most people picture. As of this spring, more than 1,700 trials are recruiting in the United States across cancers that primarily affect women, including breast, ovarian, cervical, endometrial, and uterine cancers. More than 120 are recruiting across endometriosis, uterine fibroids, polycystic ovary syndrome, and menopause-related conditions. Hundreds of trials are active in conditions that disproportionately affect women, including autoimmune diseases (where the body's immune system attacks its own tissues) like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, plus thyroid disorders that occur in women at several times the rate seen in men. Maternal health, postpartum depression, osteoporosis and bone health, and cardiovascular disease in women are also active research areas.

The mix of study types is broader than many people realize. Some trials test new medications, including the next generation of cancer therapies and non-hormonal options for menopause symptoms. Others test devices, surgical approaches, lifestyle and exercise programs, screening strategies, or digital tools that let patients track symptoms at home. Prevention trials, which look at how to reduce the chance of developing a condition in people who have not yet been diagnosed, are also a meaningful share of the women's health research pipeline.

For one example of what an active women's health trial roster looks like in a single condition area, see 5 Breakthrough Cervical Health Clinical Trials Recruiting.

Common Concerns About Joining a Women's Health Clinical Trial

Three concerns come up repeatedly when women look into clinical trial participation. Each has a clear answer, and each is worth addressing directly rather than letting it sit as a barrier.

The first is whether joining a trial means giving up current care. In most studies of patients who already have a diagnosis, the answer is no. Trials of cancer therapies, autoimmune medications, and other active care are usually designed to test the study approach as an addition to, or alternative to, standard of care (the current accepted approach to managing a condition). Withholding effective care from patients who need it is generally considered unethical, and study designs reflect that. The research team explains exactly what the design is during the informed consent conversation, which happens before anyone enrolls.

The second concern is specific to women: whether participation will require birth control, regular pregnancy testing, or other restrictions related to becoming pregnant during the study. For many women's health trials that test medications still being investigated, the answer is yes. The reason is straightforward. The effects of a medication that has not yet been fully studied on a developing pregnancy are often unknown, and protecting participants and any potential pregnancy is a core ethical requirement. The specific requirements are laid out in the consent form before enrollment, so participants know exactly what they are agreeing to and can decide whether the study fits their situation.

The third concern is whether participants receive a placebo (an inactive look-alike used for comparison) and miss out on real care. Placebo-only designs are uncommon when an effective option already exists for the condition being studied, and they are rare in cancer trials of patients who are actively in care. More common designs compare the study approach against the current standard of care, or add the study approach on top of standard care. How a study uses a placebo, if at all, is always disclosed in the consent process.

For more on what eligibility requirements typically look like and why they exist, see Eligibility Explained: Why Not Everyone Qualifies for a Trial.

How to Find a Women's Health Clinical Trial You Might Qualify For

The most useful next step for someone curious about participation is to look at what is recruiting in the relevant condition area and at sites that are realistically reachable.

DecenTrialz is built for that search. You share some basic information about yourself and the diagnosis or risk situation you are looking into, get matched with women's health clinical trials that may fit, and a nurse pre-screens you to walk through what each study involves before you decide whether to take the next step. The research team running each study makes all final eligibility and enrollment decisions, since they are the ones responsible for the participant's care during the trial. You can start a search at decentrialz.com.

Bringing the conversation into a routine appointment with a primary care doctor, gynecologist, oncologist, or other specialist is a useful complement. A doctor who already knows a patient's history can flag whether a particular study seems like a reasonable fit and can sometimes connect a patient directly to research teams they work with.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of the search and enrollment process, see How to Find and Enroll in a Clinical Trial: A Step-by-Step Guide.

Next Steps

Women's Health Month in May 2026 is a useful entry point, but research participation does not have to be tied to a specific month. Trials are recruiting year-round across the women's health pipeline, and the most useful action is the practical one. Look at what is open in the relevant condition area, talk to a doctor about whether participation makes sense in the context of overall care, and let the research team handle the eligibility steps from there. You can begin a search at decentrialz.com.