We are pleased to announce a spring workshop series at the UZH Digital Society Initiative‘s  Health Community: Cycles of Care!

Digital women’s health sits at the intersection of medicine, technology, sociology, and intersectionally feminist design. Yet, despite growing evidence of sex- and gender-specific differences, their integration into research design, data analysis, and applied practice remains fragmented, inconsistent, and methodologically underdeveloped.

This workshop series therefore brings together researchers and practitioners across medicine, technology, sociology, and feminist design who work with sex- and gender-specific data focusing on 

• how to better (best) integrate such data into research and practice 
• sharing evidence and best-case practices and 
• identify and closing gaps and biases in data, design, communication, and care

Each workshop session will combine keynote inputs, interactive group work, and open discussion.

Contributions and materials from the sessions will feed into a living document compiling best practices, tools, and resources (e.g., validated questionnaires, datasets, GitHub repositories, R packages, and design principles). The goal is to translate these insights into a joint scholarly publication advancing the field of digital women’s health together with all interested workshop participants.

📅 Thursday, 26 March 2026 – 16:30–20:00
📍 University of Zurich, Digital Society Initiative, Building SOC, Rämistrasse 69
💻 Hybrid/Zoom: https://uzh.zoom.us/j/61614164169?pwd=M854hHd13cQsGr6AHVTDIjKzNxOSfH.1 

This opening session introduces the conceptual foundations of sex- and gender-sensitive research and care. Speakers will highlight why integrating sex and gender matters for scientific validity, clinical effectiveness, and equitable health innovation.

16.30 – 16.40 Welcome & Introduction
Prof. Dr. Marcia Nißen, Professor of Health Technologies, Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Science

16.40 – 17.20 Why Sex and Gender Matter in Research and Health Innovation (Keynote + Q&A)
Dr. med. Jeanne Moor, MSc, Physician-Scientist at the Chair for Gender Medicine, University of Zurich

This keynote will introduce why sex and gender are critical factors in research, healthcare, and women’s health. It explores how biological and sociocultural differences influence health outcomes, why they are often overlooked, and how researchers and practitioners can better integrate sex- and gender-sensitive approaches into their work.

17.20 – 18.00 Beyond representation: Evidence and roadmap to turn health equity into action (Keynote + Q&A)
Enriqueta Vallejo Yagüe, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Zurich,

This keynote will move beyond the question of representation to explore how health equity can be systematically integrated into research practice. It introduces the ETIE framework (Explore, Tailor, Implement, Evaluate), which provides a structured approach to identifying and addressing key diversity domains such as sex, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and health literacy. The talk will highlight how these interconnected factors shape health outcomes and research validity, and how researchers can operationalize them across different stages of the research process. It will also address current challenges, including limited data availability, and outline practical steps toward more equitable, inclusive, and impactful health research.

18.00 – 18.15 Break

18.15 – 19.15 Group Work: World Café

In the interactive sessions, participants will discuss key questions such as:

• Why are sex and gender differences often overlooked in research and digital health design?
• What types of data and measures are required to capture sex- and gender-specific factors?
• How can researchers and practitioners integrate these considerations into their work?

19.15 – 20.00 Apéro

📅 Thursday, 30 April 2026 – 15.00 – 19.00h
📍 University of Zurich, Digital Society Initiative, Building SOC, Rämistrasse 69

💻 Hybrid/Zoom: https://uzh.zoom.us/j/61614164169?pwd=M854hHd13cQsGr6AHVTDIjKzNxOSfH.1 

Inclusive research depends on inclusive recruitment. This session focuses on strategies for recruiting diverse populations in health and digital health studies.

Topics include:

• Challenges in recruiting underrepresented populations
• Gender-sensitive recruitment strategies
• Ethical considerations and trust-building
• Digital recruitment methods and community engagement

Participants will share experiences and collaboratively identify best practices for inclusive participant recruitment in digital health research.

15.00 – 15.15 Welcome Note 
Marinja Principe, PhD Candidate, University of Zurich, People and Computing Lab

15.15 – 16.00 Digital pathways to overcome stigma and bias in digital health technology development.
Dr. Danielly de Paula, Lecturer, University College Cork (Postponed due to illness)

This keynote will explore how social stigma and implicit medical bias shape access to care and innovation in women’s health, and why these barriers continue to constrain the development of digital health solutions. It will introduce two digital pathways through which innovators can strategically engage digital influencers and online health communities as vehicles for delivering evidence-based online interventions aimed at reducing the impact of these barriers.

15.15 – 16.00 A Feminist Autoethnographic Critique of Technology and Research on Gender-Based Violence.
Nimra Ahmed, MSc, Fast-track PhD Student, University of Zurich

This keynote, based on the award-winning CHI 2026 paper by the same name (authored by Nimra Ahmed, Angelika Strohmayer, and Elaine Huang), calls for more sustainable and community‑led HCI approaches to supporting people affected by gender‑based violence, particularly forced marriage. Drawing on personal and research reflections, the paper highlights how digital interventions often fall short: Ending at prototypes, prioritizing legal solutions too early, or reinforcing harmful labels.

16.00 – 16.45 Designing gender-sensitive recruitment for health research
Abdelilah Hamamou, PhD Candidate, Radboud university medical center (Radboudumc), Department of Primary and Community Care, Unit Gender in Primary and Transmural Care

This keynote will explore how recruitment shapes who becomes visible in health research and whose experiences remain underrepresented in evidence, innovation, and care. Drawing on examples from gender-sensitive research in rheumatic diseases, the talk will discuss how language, trust, digital access, clinical pathways, and community engagement influence participation. It will highlight practical strategies for recruiting underrepresented groups, including the use of multi-channel recruitment, clearer communication, clinician and patient organisation involvement, and real-time monitoring of who is still missing. The keynote will invite participants to view recruitment not only as a logistical step, but as an ethical, methodological, and social design decision that is central to inclusive and valid health research.

16.45 – 17.00 Coffee Break

17.00 – 18.30 Interactive Group Discussions

18.30 – 19.00 Apéro

📅 Wednesday, 20 May March 2026 – 17.00 – 20.00h
📍 University of Zurich, Digital Society Initiative, Building SOC, Rämistrasse 69

💻 Hybrid/Zoom: https://uzh.zoom.us/j/61614164169?pwd=M854hHd13cQsGr6AHVTDIjKzNxOSfH.1 

This session explores methodological approaches for integrating intersectional sex and gender into research design and analysis.

Topics include:

• Sex- and gender-sensitive study designs
• Measurement tools and validated scales
• Data analysis strategies for sex- and gender-differentiated data
• Digital tools and infrastructures for collecting and analyzing health data

In the interactive session, participants will identify, collect, and develop methodological guidelines and practical tools.

17.00 – 17.15 Welcome Note 
Davinny Sou, PhD Candidate, Centre for Digital Health Interventions, ETH Zurich & University of St.Gallen

17.15 – 18.00  End-to-End Research to Foster Holistic Menstrual Health Sensemaking
Georgianna (Blue) Lin, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University

This keynote presents an end-to-end research approach to support holistic menstrual health sensemaking from integrating data collection, analysis, to real-world use. Drawing on mixed-methods work spanning qualitative research, statistical and machine learning approaches, and system deployment, the talk examines how multimodal data, including wearable sensing, can be leveraged to support users in making sense of complex, cyclical health data and translating insights into informed action. Framed within an intersectional perspective on sex and gender, this work emphasizes the importance of inclusive study design and analytical methods that account for diverse bodies and lived experiences. It also explores how menstrual-relevant signals can be derived from general-purpose sensing infrastructures, expanding access to menstrual health insights.

18.00 – 18.45 Beyond Interfaces: Designing Health Technologies in Living Ecologies

Anupriya Tuli, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Interaction Design Team, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

This keynote will shift focus away from the interfaces, inviting us to look beyond screens and features into the messy realities where health technologies quietly live and breathe. It asks the audience to see these technologies not as isolated tools, but as part of a living, shifting ecology woven through people, organizations, infrastructures, culture, and everyday practices of care. Rather than smoothing over complexity, the talk centres on the tensions of designing within such entangled systems. It introduces the Socio-Ecological Canvas as a visual vocabulary to trace how design decisions are shaped by, ripple across, and in turn shape multiple layers of ecological influence. 

At its heart, the keynote is an invitation. To pause. To notice the ecologies we design within and for. And to imagine, together, not only the aspired versions of existing realities but also realities that do not exist yet.

18.45 – 19.00 Break – grap some snacks from the Apéro buffet to fuel up for the group work :)

19.00 – 20.00 Interactive Group Work

20.00 – open  Apéro

📅 Thursday, June 4 2026 – 17.00 – 20.30h
📍 University of Zurich, Digital Society Initiative, Building SOC, Rämistrasse 69

💻 Hybrid/Zoom: https://uzh.zoom.us/j/61614164169?pwd=M854hHd13cQsGr6AHVTDIjKzNxOSfH.1 

The final workshop focuses on translating research insights into broader societal impact.

Topics include:

• Communicating research on sex and gender in health
• Translating evidence into policy and practice
• Activism, advocacy, and feminist technology design
• Building interdisciplinary networks for lasting impact

17.00 – 17.15 Welcome Note 
Marinja Principe, MSc, PhD Candidate, University of Zurich, People and Computing Lab

17.15 – 18.00 What Remains After the Research? CaseCompass, Activism, and the Politics of Design
Nimra Ahmed, MSc, Fast-track PhD Student, University of Zurich

In this talk, Nimra Ahmed will reflect on CaseCompass, a community-led socio-technical system designed with the Swiss Competence Centre against Forced Marriages to support case work in the context of forced marriage and gender-based violence. Starting from this project, the talk asks what it means for feminist and activist research to leave something behind that is useful, sustainable, and accountable to the communities it engages with. The talk will explore how feminist HCI, design justice, and community-led design can support more accountable forms of research: research that does not merely extract stories, publish findings, or produce short-lived prototypes, but works toward community-defined needs, sustainable infrastructures, and lasting forms of impact. Through the example of CaseCompass, Nimra will reflect on academic accompliceship, participation, trust, handover, and the ongoing responsibility researchers have toward the communities and organizations they work with.

18.15 – 19.00 Crafting Hopeful Imaginaries and Exploring Sustainability in Systems Change Work: improving care for mothers in recovery from addictions
Prof. Dr. Angelika Strohmayer, Design Feminisms Research Group, School of Design, Arts, and Creative Industries, Northumbria University

In this talk, Dr Strohmayer will reflect on her community-based and design-led research to improve care ecosystems with mothers in recovery from addiction. She will explore how this programme of work has tried to balance long-term systems change with immediately implementable changes in practice across public health, social care, recovery, and women’s support services. Drawing together findings from this ongoing work, Dr Strohmayer will use this as an example to reflect on (1) what ‘sustainability’ in systems change work can be when working with communities and (2) how this work can lead to collaborative, cross-sector working to craft hopeful imaginaries of not only the care that is needed for women to survive, but also to blossom. 

19.00 – 19.15  Break

19.15 – 20.30 Interactive Group Work

20.30 – open Apéro

Researchers may engage with the workshop series in multiple ways:

• attend keynote talks (online or in person)
• participate in the interactive workshop sessions (in person, limited seats)
• contribute asynchronously via the shared collaboration board
• contribute to the final framework and publication

This flexible format aims to support interdisciplinary exchange and sustained collaboration, while lowering barriers to participation.

Each session begins with one or two keynote talks introducing the theme of the workshop.

Keynotes are:

• open to the public
• accessible both in person and online
• recorded and made available afterwards

This allows interested participants to engage with the core ideas and discussions of the series even if they cannot attend the interactive workshop sessions.

Following the keynote talks, each session includes interactive workshop activities designed to foster discussion, reflection, and collaborative work.

To enable deeper dialogue and meaningful exchange, the workshop components are primarily in-person.

• 30 seats available per session
• participants may register for individual sessions or the full series
• activities include small group discussions, collaborative exercises, and resource sharing

To enable broader participation across disciplines and institutions, the workshop series includes a shared online collaboration space.

Participants can contribute to the ongoing discussions and outputs through a shared Miro board, which will serve as a collaborative workspace across sessions.

The board will allow participants to:

• share relevant papers, datasets, tools, and resources
• contribute examples of good practices and case studies
• add methodological recommendations
• highlight gaps and open research questions

This means that researchers who cannot attend a specific session can still contribute ideas and resources asynchronously.

Insights from workshop discussions and contributions will be curated into a living document, which will include:

• summaries of key discussions
• curated tools and resources
• methodological guidance
• emerging research questions

Participants contributing to this process will be invited to participate in the development of a Digital Women’s Health Framework v2.0 and a potential joint scholarly publication.

Access to our living Miro Board: Miro Board – Cycles of Care 2026 (PW: cycles-of-care-2026)

Alongside the development of shared outputs, this initiative fosters an ongoing, interdisciplinary community through unmute.

Nißen, M., Sou, D., Kowatsch, T., Digital Female Health: Advancing Women-Centric Human-Computer Interaction Research, Mensch und Computer 2024 – Workshopband. Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.. MCI-WS14: Bedürfnisse sind unterschiedlich und verändern sich, Methoden auch? Umdenken bei Forschungsmethoden. Karlsruhe, Germany 1.-4. September 2024, 10.18420/muc2024-mci-ws14-199