National Institutes of Health: Problems in Implementing Policy on Women in Study Populations

GAO discussed the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) progress in implementing its policy to encourage the inclusion of women in study populations. GAO noted that: (1) the policy on women has not been well communicated or understood within NIH or the research community; (2) there were inconsistencies in how NIH has applied the policy in a key stage of the grant review process; (3) NIH policy on women applies only to extramural research; and (4) although the original policy announcement encouraged researchers to analyze study results by gender, NIH officials have taken little action to implement this element of the policy.