Think back to 1993. What do you remember?
Watching the movie Jurassic Park on the big screen? Are you listening to Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” on the radio? Surfing the World Wide Web for the first time?
1993 was also the year the government began requiring the National Institutes of Health to include women in medical research.
Yes, you heard right. Just 32 years ago, the NIH Revitalization Act was passed with a mandate to include women in clinical trials and other research.
The landmark bill was a huge step forward, pushed by women’s health advocates. However, to date, only 8% to 11% of NIH grants currently fund women’s health.
This detail was not lost Liz Powell. After working as a lawyer, lobbying Congress for 25 years and running a bipartisan firm, G2G Consulting, he started Women’s Health Advocates (WHA) in 2024. WHA is a bipartisan coalition with a mission to help shape the legislative process, educate government decision makers about women’s health, and secure funding for advances in women’s health.
We spoke with Powell and Elizabeth Garner, MD, MPHfounding member of the WHA, about the organization’s first year and how they keep the spotlight on women’s health.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
HealthyWomen: Liz, can we go back to the beginning and talk about why you started Women’s Health Advocates?
Lisa: I’ve done a lot in the healthcare space and I’m trying to bring life science innovations to market by working with government to accelerate access to government funding.
I would have a couple of clients here and there touching the feminine hygiene area. Every time you acquire a new customer, you learn about different gaps where unmet needs need solutions. I realized this isn’t just one here and there – there’s a real plan going on. So I helped organize these two new coalitions and efforts for better women’s health advocacy and education, and I realized that we needed something as an umbrella for all of that. And that’s what Women’s Health Advocates is.
We started in February this year. But as I said, it’s the culmination of the work of many of us, including doctors—Dr. Garner has been a huge advocate for women’s health—and there have been many, many people who have been working really hard in the field of women’s health for a long time.
What Women’s Health Advocates is trying to do is bring all of that together for advocacy, all aspects of the ecosystem. So whether you’re a researcher or clinician, CEO, entrepreneur, investor, patient — no matter where you are in this ecosystem, there’s a place for you at Women’s Health Advocates.
We want to change laws, we want to increase funding, work with government and make sure politicians understand the impact their decisions have on women’s health.
HealthyWomen: Dr. Garner, what was it about WHA that made you want to get involved?
Elizabeth Garner: Most of it was that I really like Liz (laughs). We’ve known each other for a while.
Everything he said is what I was thinking — and going through. First, as a women’s health doctor, I was frustrated by the lack of solutions for so many conditions like endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and fibroids, and you can just go on and on.
I saw women really suffer — and their families. I felt like we needed a lot more. And then I left clinical medicine because I was hoping that if I got into industry, I might have a bigger impact. And unfortunately what I found was that we don’t have the solutions that I wanted as a doctor because the research just hasn’t been done.
Modern medicine was really developed for male physiology, and women were supposed to be little men. Because of this, we don’t really understand the fundamental science underlying all these conditions. And this hurts from a therapeutic point of view as well as from a diagnostic point of view. So we don’t really have good ways to even diagnose many of the conditions I mentioned. Women go years before they figure out what’s wrong. We still don’t know why women differ from men in many ways.
This is still going on and there is a lack of innovation, investment etc. in women’s health. That’s really why we want to bring anyone, everyone into this organization — meaning not just women but men as well. We have a lot of male advocates, but historically, men have been the ones who decide where health dollars go, so over time, women’s issues have not been considered as important as men’s issues. By bringing this entire ecosystem together, we can really make a difference. And that’s why I joined.
Healthy Women: Tell us more about the needs the WHA faces and anything worth highlighting.
Lisa: I would say — putting on my lobbying hat — to be an effective lobbyist, to get tangible results, I want to jump on a train that’s already moving. I want to advocate for general education about the long-term benefits we need in women’s health. Well, that train is called credits.
Every year, the House and Senate have to do these appropriations bills. This, plus the National Defense Authorization Act, is done every year no matter what. Appropriations is where we’ve paid a lot of attention, lobbied, and gotten there to include language and funding lines in the appropriations bills, and we’re actually seeing results. Our success was a combination of my lobbying team, which is myself and my folks at G2G Consulting, and our letter writing campaign.
We would write letters for people and we got our grassroots supporters who are in all 50 states writing letters. We also hold events on Capitol Hill and had our first event in April focused on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reimbursement discrimination because, on average, the same surgery performed on a female and a male patient has a 30% lower reimbursement rate if it’s a female patient.
Briefing Congress opened a lot of eyes. A lot of people started asking questions and wanting to work with us, so that’s great.
On May 21st, we held the first Women’s Health Day on Capitol Hill, where we spoke about the health of all women with a large bipartisan turnout of members of Congress.
In July, we had breast cancer day. Every time we do this, we bring advocates to Washington to share their stories to shape the legislative process. And the results that we’re seeing all came out over the summer and showed that the language that we had lobbied for, like the definition of women’s health, which are conditions that exclusively, disproportionately, and/or differently affect women’s health from head to toe throughout their lives, is actually in the House bill.
Our funding request for a $30 million increase for the Office of Women’s Health Research has been included in the Senate bill and the House bill. that’s an increase of $26 million. So, in any case, this office will get a raise.
So all these efforts produce real results. We still have a ways to go, but at least we’re seeing something in less than a year.
Barn: Liz is the winning policy. I’m not and I’m learning, but just from my perspective, another thing that I think the WHA is clearly doing is raising awareness.
As we go around the country, more and more people are coming, and it’s amazing — because we know these things, but most people don’t. So we’re talking about data about the lack of innovation and NIH funding and all that and venture capital funding. We also do a lot of education, and that’s really important and will help us as we continue to talk about policy.
Healthy Women: What are the group’s goals for 2026?
Liz: We’re in an election year, so that’s going to be a big factor. Because we are not a non-profit organization, we can be involved in politics as well as politics.
We will keep an eye on what is happening on the policy front. We will make more credits next year. And then we’ll also track the candidate, and the candidates who are in what’s called a “convinced district,” where the person wins by 1% to 5%. These are persuasive areas that could be reversed either way. And that’s where the greatest power lies in changing and making women a priority. So we’re going to focus on them — we’re going to watch them.
We really want to do a whole campaign for women’s health. We are already working together Beyond the Paper Gown about doing a whole series to educate people about women’s health issues and why it’s important to get out and vote.
Barn: I think the awareness part, as I mentioned, is going to be very important, but also the integration into our strategy going forward is going to be very important to keep moving forward.
Healthy Women: How do supporting organizations like the Society for Women’s Health Research and HealthyWomen play an important role in advancing these goals?
Liz: It is critical. The Society for Research on Women’s Health does a lot of great advocacy work, but it’s a non-profit, so they’re limited in how much they can do. And so a lot of times we collaborate when they’re working on something and we can enhance it.
We’ve signed letters they’ve sent to Congress, for example, and we’ve written letters they’ve signed. There’s a lot of very supportive collaboration and cooperation going on.
Barn: There is simply no organization that can do this alone. And so we talk a lot about bringing the whole ecosystem together so that everyone works together.
HealthyWomen and SWHR provide women with information and safe spaces to tell their stories. And that’s what drives people. This is what prompts policy makers, investors and other stakeholders to take action when they hear these stories.
Healthy Women: How can readers get involved?
Barn: We do events all over the country, so we definitely invite people to come to an event and see what’s going on and learn and meet like-minded people.
Lisa: People can also sign up on our website to be part of our community — I send out legislative updates and a lot of insider information that most people don’t have, with women’s health always the focus.
HealthyWomen: Is there anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t talked about?
Barn: I have one thing that I think is always important to talk about, and that is diversity. We are a very different organization. And it’s so important because, for all the issues we’ve talked about, it’s always worse for women of color, for other underserved communities, and so on. So we need to make sure that as we go forward, we include everyone in everything we do.
