Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) investigators were informed on April 21 that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will terminate WHI Regional Center (RC) contracts at the end of the current fiscal year (September 2025). The WHI Clinical Coordinating Center (CCC) will continue operations until January 2026, after which time its funding remains uncertain. Following a backlash from the scientific community, HHS representatives said on April 24 that funding would be reinstated, according to reports from CNN, NPR, and The New York Times.
The threat of contract terminations would significantly impact ongoing research and data collection—especially the detailed participant health event data collected by RC staff. The loss of this critical data stream would severely limit the WHI’s ability to generate new insights into the health of older women, one of the fastest-growing segments of the population. If CCC funding were to cease in early 2026, it would greatly reduce access to WHI’s unparalleled women’s health data set and biorepository and thus opportunities for new discoveries and future scientific advancements.
RCs and the CCC play a vital role in scientific collaboration, supporting investigators across multiple disciplines. RCs help to organize scientific interest groups, fostering new ideas and collaborations that keep WHI innovative, productive, and efficient.
The Value of WHI: 30 Years of Scientific Impact on Chronic Diseases
Since the 1990s, WHI has led groundbreaking research in women’s health, generating findings that have shaped clinical practice and public health policies in the United States. Nearly 162,000 women aged 50 to 79 were enrolled in WHI’s studies in the mid-1990s across 40 clinical centers nationwide; more than 42,000 participants aged 78 to 108 remain actively involved today.
WHI’s research has helped reduce the rates of cancer and other diseases, influencing clinical guidelines for multiple health factors. As a specific example, WHI data on the effects of estrogen plus progestin led to a dramatic shift in menopausal hormone therapy prescriptions, preventing an estimated 126,000 breast cancer cases and 76,000 fewer cardiovascular disease cases over the decade following the release of the results, saving an estimated $35.2 billion in direct medical costs.
WHI researchers have documented more than 38,000 cancer cases; 38,000 cardiovascular events (eg, heart attack, stroke, heart failure, and deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism); 70,000 bone fractures; and 95,000 deaths.
As WHI evolves, investigators continue exploring key aging-related health factors, including frailty, vision loss, dementia, mental health and social isolation, as well as the modifiable lifestyle factors that influence these aspects—ensuring continued contributions to long-term health insights.
WHI’s Collaborative Achievements
WHI remains one of the most productive multidisciplinary research networks and has enabled more than 2,400 scientific publications; 342 independently funded ancillary studies, including 30 active studies; approximately 5,000 investigators in publishing results; contributions to numerous research consortia, including Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed), Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE), Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE), the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Cohort Consortium, Genetic Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium (GECCO), and the International Lung Cancer Consortium (ILCO); and open access to WHI’s data sets via the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Biologic Specimen and Data Repository Information Coordinating Center (BioLINCC) and the National Institutes of Health database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP).
WHI has expanded its impact through collaboration and innovation, linking the WHI database to Medicare, Cancer Registries, and the National Death Index, supporting two clinical trials (COSMOS and WHISH) and adapting to new technologies to advance women’s health research.
