Designing Equitable Healthcare

How do we design for women's health? Through a feminist design lens, women's lived experiences can change how we deliver healthcare for women.

Designing Equitable Healthcare joins the movement to close the women’s health gap. As graduation project at Catharina Ziekenhuis Eindhoven, Noa Smolenaars developed a practical feminist design approach so healthcare designers can challenge, change and improve how women’s healthcare is delivered.
Strijp-S
Care
This project is part of
Red Box
B7
Area 51
Ketelhuisplein 18
5617AE

Entrance fee

Free access

By

Noa Smolenaars

Hosted by

Katja Lucas, Wisse Trooster en Alieke Geerts
noasmolenaars@icloud.com
+31620853208
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Opening hours

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Dogs Allowed Dogs are allowed
Free Wifi Free wifi available
Toilets Toilets available
Wheelchair Friendly Partially wheelchair accessible
Wheelchair Friendly Toilet Wheelchair friendly toilet available

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Designing for Women's health

Although awareness of women’s health is growing, healthcare is still built on knowledge that rarely included women. Designers can challenge that!

With a Feminist Design Lens, Noa reimagines how care can be designed and delivered for women. Building on the work of feminist scholars and activists, she translated six feminist values (power, knowledge, plurality, care, liberation, and community) into a practical tool for designing care pathways in hospital practice.

At Catharina Ziekenhuis Eindhoven, Noa applied this lens to design visual care pathways to improve information for women. Her mission: to bring equity and empathy into healthcare by making women’s experiences visible, discussable, and actionable.


The feminist design lens is not just a framework, it’s a movement towards care that listens, includes, and transforms. Let's call to healthcare designers to question norms, confront bias, and co-create a healthcare system that truly cares for women.

How to design with Care?
How to design with Care?
Noa Smolenaars
How to design for Plurality?
How to design for Plurality?
Noa Smolenaars
How to design with overlooked knowledge?
How to design with overlooked knowledge?
Noa Smolenaars

Hosted by Noa Smolenaars

Noa is a feminist healthcare designer at Catharina Hospital Eindhoven, (re)designing care pathways to improve patient experiences. She co-founded Tromboseoverlevers.nl, a community for young thrombosis patients, and leads her own studio, Studio Smolenaars, turning design into real-world change.

Colofon

Supervisor Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology
Daisy O'Neill
Supervisor Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology
Tilde Bekker
Supervisor Catharina Ziekenhuis Eindhoven
Eva Deckers

Partners

Sponsored by Designing Equitable Healthcare
Sponsored by Designing Equitable Healthcare

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