News|Articles|December 28, 2025

Top 5 women’s health news articles of 2025

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Key Takeaways

Innovations in formulary coverage are addressing gendered healthcare disparities, closing care gaps in women's health.
Historical underfunding and biases have hindered women's health research, but increased awareness is driving positive change.
An FDA panel reexamined hormone replacement therapy risks, challenging previous findings from the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study.
Misconceptions about menopause have long-term costs, but employers can support menopausal workers to mitigate these effects.
The FDA's approval of an at-home cervical cancer screening device improves access to essential health services for women.

This year, we explored how innovations in women's health are bridging care gaps, addressing biases and enhancing access to vital treatments and screenings.

1. Advancing women's health through formulary coverage innovations

Care gaps in women’s health are closing, thanks to increased cultural awareness of gendered healthcare disparities, according to Susan Cantrell, CEO of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy.

2. The global impact of underfunding women’s health

Bias and stigma are to blame for the way women’s health research has fallen behind, according to Monica Christmas, M.D., director of UChicago Medicine’s menopause program and the Center for Women's Integrated Health and Valentina Sartori, Ph.D., a partner in McKinsey & Company’s Life Sciences Practice and affiliated leader of the McKinsey Health Institute.

3. FDA panel challenges hormone replacement therapy risks

A panel of 12 experts in the menopause field reexamined the findings of the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study that said there were more risks than benefits for menopausal women taking hormone therapy.

4. The long-term cost of major menopause misconceptions

An overview of menopause taboo, the lingering effects of the Women’s Health Initiative study and what employers can do to support their menopausal workers, according to Stephanie Faubion, M.D., director of the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Women’s Health and medical director of The Menopause Society.

5. FDA approves first at-home cervical cancer screening device

Self-collected samples to test for cervical cancer are a step in the right direction when it comes to addressing healthcare barriers, according to Rahma S. Mkuu, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor in the Department of Health Outcomes & Biomedical Informatics at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

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