Read more about the HHS offices and agencies included in this section.
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Health and Wellness
- Getting Active
- Healthy Eating
- Healthy Living by Age
- Healthy Weight
- Mental Health
- Relationships and Safety
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Diseases and Conditions
- Cancer
- Heart Disease and Stroke
- HIV and AIDS
- Lupus
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Reproductive Health
- Breastfeeding
- Menopause
- Menstrual Cycle
- Ovulation Calculator
- Pregnancy
- Patient Materials
- 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)
- HHS and women's health: Agency and office descriptions
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- 30 Achievements in Women's Health in 30 Years (1984 – 2014)
- Increasing women's lifespan
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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.Increasing women's lifespan
Over the past 30 years women have been living longer. In 1984, a woman's life expectancy was 78.1 Today, women on average live to 81 — and that number continues to rise.2 However, the life expectancy of American women ranks far below Asian and European women, whose life expectancies range from 87 to 90 years.3
Living longer means more women are at risk for chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and Alzheimer's disease. But, there's good news, too. Women are living longer because of preventive measures and new, better treatments for diseases, according to a recent CDC report.4 A large majority of this prevention and improved treatment results from federally funded research from agencies such as NIH, CDC, AHRQ, and SAMHSA.
Other examples of HHS' work are programs that target health behaviors or specific diseases, such as heart disease, which is the leading cause of death for American women. Recent programs and campaigns include the CDC's Well-integrated Screening and Evaluation for Women Across the Nation (WISEWOMAN) program, NHLBI's The Heart Truth® and OWH's Make the Call. Don't Miss a Beat.
Programs and campaigns across the government help raise awareness and support women in taking care of their health. But we still have improvements to make. In the next 30 years, we all need to work together to support women in their decisions to stop smoking, eat healthier, get active, and see their doctor regularly for screenings. Thanks to the passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, many women can now get annual well-woman visits and many preventive services at no cost. Together we can help women live longer.
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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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