When is World Women's Wellness Day in 2026?

Friday, April 24, 2026. The date follows the last Friday in April rather than a fixed number, which is why published dates for it disagree from year to year.

Is World Women's Wellness Day the same as National Women's Health Week?

No, they are separate observances run by different bodies. National Women's Health Week is led by the US Department of Health and Human Services and runs every May, beginning on Mother's Day.

Who created World Women's Wellness Day?

Diversity Woman Media, a US media company founded by Dr. Sheila Robinson that published a magazine for women professionals. It now trades as Executive Woman Media.

World Women’s Wellness Day

Next celebratedFriday, April 30, 2027

World Women's Wellness Day is set aside for the women who spend the rest of the year looking after everyone else. Make the appointment you keep deferring, take the walk, and let something wait until tomorrow.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATELast Friday in April

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYHealth

SUBCATEGORYWellness

ORIGIN

Corporate Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY

Diversity Woman Media

FIRST OBSERVED

2021

“Diversity Woman Media announced the day on April 15, 2021 and set it to the last Friday in April, sanctioned by National Day Archives, LLC.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A business magazine wrote itself a world day.

Diversity Woman Media, a business magazine and community for women professionals and executives, announced World Women's Wellness Day on April 15, 2021 and fixed it to the last Friday in April, beginning April 30, 2021. The company said the day was sanctioned by National Day Archives, LLC, a private registrar rather than a public authority.

Read the 2021 launch announcementvia PR Newswire

INTRO

Who gets to declare a world health day

Search the US Federal Register for World Women's Wellness Day and nothing comes back. No federal proclamation, rule or notice carries the name.

That gap is the honest place to start. The only body the day's own announcement credits with sanctioning it is National Day Archives, LLC, a private company. No government body appears anywhere in its founding announcement.

None of which makes the day a fiction. It has been kept since 2021, and its stated purpose is blunt enough: women should stop putting their own health last. What it lacks is a public authority, so the word official, which its announcement uses freely, describes a private arrangement rather than a public one.

ORIGINS

World Women’s Wellness Day history

INTRODUCTION

Before there was a day, there was a webinar. Through the pandemic, Diversity Woman Media ran a series it called Wellness Wednesdays for the professional women who read its magazine. The sessions covered sleep, stress, nutrition and mental health.

The company still hosts that archive, headed Wellness Wednesdays 2022-2023. The names on it, a sleep specialist and a chiropractor among them, are the same ones that would fill the new day's first programme.

CHAPTER 01

The magazine writes itself a holiday

On April 15, 2021, the company issued an announcement. It named World Women's Wellness Day, fixed it to the last Friday in April, and called it the official health and wellness day for women.

Dr. Sheila Robinson, who founded the company, supplied the day's governing image. "Our metaphor is 'put your mask on first,' which is what flight attendants tell us," she said in that announcement. The idea, she went on, was that women take care of themselves before taking care of their children.

CHAPTER 02

Free the first year, ticketed the next

The first observance ran online over two days at the end of April 2021, and it cost nothing to attend. Ten sponsors the announcement thanks by name underwrote it, among them Cisco, Cigna, Walgreens and The Walt Disney Company.

A year later the day moved into a hotel. Diversity Woman Media booked the DoubleTree Resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and charged $249.00 a person for the conference it ran alongside the day.

The company has since renamed itself, and its own pages now read Executive Woman Media, formerly Diversity Woman Media. What the record does not settle is who runs the day now. Diversity Woman Media documented the first two observances in its own announcements, and no later ones have been found.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why World Women's Wellness Day Matters

LAW

Cost is not an acceptable reason for excluding women from a trial.

The NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 required that its guidelines treat the costs of including women in a clinical trial as not a permissible consideration in judging whether their inclusion is inappropriate. NIH states the same rule in plainer words, that cost is not allowed as an acceptable reason for excluding these groups.

EVIDENCE

Why a research office had to be built

The NIH Office of Research on Women's Health says the lack of inclusion of females in clinical trials meant that many clinical decisions about female health care were based on findings from studies of male participants, without evidence that these findings were generalizable. Neither that office nor that statute has any connection to this observance, and nothing on the day's record ties it to either.

PRECEDENT

What recognition looks like when it happens

May 28 was named the International Day of Action for Women's Health by campaigners meeting in Costa Rica in 1987, and the government of South Africa officially recognised it in 1999. That is what state recognition of an international women's health day looks like on the record.

TIMELINE

Timeline

A federal office for women's health

NIH set up the Office of Research on Women's Health, the first Public Health Service office dedicated specifically to promoting women's health.

Inclusion written into statute

The NIH Revitalization Act required the Director of NIH to ensure that women are included as subjects in each project of NIH clinical research.

The day is announced

Diversity Woman Media named World Women's Wellness Day and marked the first one with a free two-day virtual conference.

A ticketed hotel conference

The second observance moved in person to a resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with paid admission.

The name travels without its founder

SOULFIRE MOVEMENT, an organiser with no documented tie to the magazine, ran a World Women's Wellness Day event at a lululemon store in Boston.

Marked in the Indian press

ABP Live noted the day on April 24 and named Diversity Woman Media as the group that started it.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe World Women's Wellness Day

Read the announcement that named the day

The founding release runs to a few hundred words and states the purpose, the date rule and the sanctioning body in plain language. Reading it takes less time than reading about it. See the 2021 announcement.

CHECK

Check which Friday it lands on

The date is a rule rather than a fixed square on the calendar, so it moves every year. It falls on April 24 in 2026 and April 30 in 2027.

TRACE

Trace how women got into clinical trials

The NIH Office of Research on Women's Health publishes its own account of why it was set up in 1990 and what the 1993 statute changed. Read the office's history.

ASK

Ask who is running an event before you book

Events have appeared under the day's name from organisers with no documented tie to the group that named it. No source identifies anyone stewarding the day centrally, so the organiser is worth checking.

PUT

Put the other two dates in your calendar

National Women's Health Week runs every May beginning on Mother's Day, and the International Day of Action for Women's Health falls on May 28. The US Office on Women's Health lists its own week.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know World Women’s Wellness Day?

1 / 7

What kind of organisation started World Women's Wellness Day?

Answer

No. It is not a public holiday and no government, intergovernmental or medical body has been found to recognise it, so it is a normal working day. The only sanction on record comes from a private company.