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Reproductive Health
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- Increase in breastfeeding
- Increasing women's lifespan
- Policy of inclusion of women in clinical trials
- Improvements in breast cancer screening
- Improvements in mental health care for women
- Decrease in breast cancer deaths
- Decrease in smoking rates for women
- Decrease in teen pregnancy
- Cervical cancer prevention and screening
- Decrease in HIV/AIDS deaths in women
- Federal funding to address violence against women
- Decrease in lung cancer deaths in women
- Mother-to-child transmission of HIV decreased
- Decrease in deaths from women's leading killer – heart disease
- Making birth control better, safer, and more accessible for women
- Creation of Offices on Women's Health at the federal level
- Cancer and Steroid Hormone (CASH) study
- Approval of emergency contraception
- Building better osteoporosis treatments
- Efforts to improve pregnant women's health and outcomes
- Dangerous drugs and devices for women removed from market
- Improvements in support to caregivers
- Improvements in older women's health
- Largest women's health prevention study ever – Women's Health Initiative
- FDA helps women and families meet their nutritional needs
- Addressing sex differences in health
- Addressing minority women's health
- Recognizing the needs of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women
- Creation of women's health information resources
- Affordable Care Act improves women's health
- 30 Achievements in Women's Health in 30 Years (1984 – 2014)
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30 Achievements in Women's Health in 30 Years (1984 – 2014)
Call the OWH HELPLINE: 1-800-994-9662
9 a.m. — 6 p.m. ET, Monday — Friday
OWH and the OWH helpline do not see patients and are unable to: diagnose your medical condition; provide treatment; prescribe medication; or refer you to specialists. The OWH helpline is a resource line. The OWH helpline does not provide medical advice.
Please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room if you are experiencing a medical emergency.30 Achievements in Women's Health in 30 Years (1984 – 2014)
Increase in breastfeeding
Read MoreThe CDC’s 2013 Breastfeeding Report Card marks continued progress over the last ten years in protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding in the United States. In recent decades, mothers, their families, and health professionals have realized the importance of breastfeeding while acknowledging that each mother’s decision about how she feeds her baby is a personal one. Every mother deserves information, guidance, and support in making this decision.
Increasing women's lifespan
Read MoreOver the past 30 years women have been living longer. In 1984, a woman's life expectancy was 78. Today, women on average live to 81 — and that number continues to rise. However, the life expectancy of American women ranks far below Asian and European women, whose life expectancies range from 87 to 90 years.
Policy of inclusion of women in clinical trials
Read MoreWith the establishment of the first HHS task force on women’s health in 1983, there was new recognition that many factors, including body size, hormonal environment, and even body fat distribution can affect the way drugs are metabolized. This could potentially mean that life-saving drugs may not work, may not work as well, or may not work similarly, in women as they do in men.
Improvements in breast cancer screening
Read MoreA mammogram is an X-ray picture of the breast used to check for breast cancer, the second most deadly cancer in women. Mammograms can find cancer early, sometimes up to three years before a woman or her doctor can feel a lump, and more than 90% of these early-stage cancers can be cured.
Improvements in mental health care for women
Read MoreThe first Surgeon General's report on mental health was released in 1999. Since then, awareness of the societal burden of mental illness, and the need for equitable treatment of it alongside physical health concerns, has increased. HHS, with leadership from SAMHSA and CMS, implements mental health parity laws to ensure that insurers cannot discriminate against those with mental illness by covering mental health treatments at a lower level than physical health concerns.
Read more about the HHS offices and agencies included in this section.
All material contained on these pages are free of copyright restrictions and may be copied, reproduced, or duplicated without permission of the Office on Women’s Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Citation of the source is appreciated.
Page last updated: April 01, 2019.
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A federal government website managed by the Office on Women's Health in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, DC 20201
1-800-994-9662 • Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET (closed on federal holidays).
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