Rep. Salinas Urges NIH to Continue Funding Landmark Menopause Study

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Congresswoman Andrea Salinas (OR-06) led thirty-three of her colleagues in sending a letter to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya urging continued funding for the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), a long-running, federally funded research study examining women’s health during midlife and menopause.

The lawmakers emphasized that SWAN has followed participants for more than 25 years and has produced critical findings on menopause’s impacts on mental health, cognitive function, bone health, cardiovascular risk, and sleep. In the letter, they stressed that menopause affects roughly half the population but remains significantly underfunded in federal research, and urged NIH to prioritize sustained support for SWAN to advance women’s health research and improve long-term health outcomes.

Click here or see below for the full letter:

Dear Director Bhattacharya:

As you evaluate the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget, we urge you to continue funding the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN). As you may know, SWAN is a foundational longitudinal, epidemiologic study that examines the health of women during their middle years, and specifically how the biological, psychological, and social changes women experience in midlife affect their overall health and long-term outcomes.

Funding for SWAN is especially important because menopause impacts about half of the population, and many women who experience moderate to severe menopause symptoms do not receive the care they need. This emphasizes the need for more NIH funding for menopause research, which totaled only $56 million in 2023.

Because SWAN researchers have followed participants for over 25 years, this study is a uniquely rich resource that is poised to make major breakthroughs in understanding how menopause and midlife changes impact women’s health as they age. In particular, SWAN has provided a wealth of information about the menopause transition (perimenopause and menopause) and its effects on women’s health. Key findings from SWAN include:

• Depression: Women experience a four-fold increase in depressive episodes during the menopause transition relative to premenopause. Women with a prior history of depression and those with a high burden of menopausal symptoms are most at risk.
• Cognitive Function: Forty percent of women report trouble with forgetfulness during perimenopause. Cognitive testing shows declines in processing speed and verbal memory during this period.
• Bone Health: Bone loss, particularly in the spine and hips, begins in perimenopause and accelerates during late perimenopause and early postmenopause, linked to declining estrogen levels.
• Vascular Risk: Women experience accelerated declines in vascular health during menopause, including increases in LDL cholesterol. Hot flashes are also linked to increased cardiovascular disease risk.
• Sleep Problems: There is a two-to-three-fold increase in sleep problems during menopause, which can have major long-term health implications, including doubling the risk of stroke later in life.

Despite these important findings affecting roughly half of the U.S. population, additional research is still needed to better understand how menopause affects women’s health at midlife and beyond—research that SWAN is uniquely positioned to deliver. Areas in need of further study include the long-term impacts of menopause on heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease; the effectiveness and safety of treatment options; the need for individualized care approaches; educational gaps among patients and health care providers; the understudied perimenopausal period; and strategies to promote prevention and healthy aging through lifestyle interventions.

Maintaining funding for SWAN will ensure continued progress in these critical areas and strengthen our understanding of women’s health for generations to come. We strongly urge you to prioritize continued funding for SWAN. 

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