From Literature to ‘ReWA’: Discussing Reproductive Well-being in HCI

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Authors: Hafsah Mahzabin Chowdhury, Sharifa Sultana
Cited by: 0

Abstract

Reproductive well-being is shaped by intersecting cultural, religious, gendered, and political contexts, yet current technologies often reflect narrow, Western-centric assumptions. In this literature review, we synthesize findings from 147 peer-reviewed papers published between 2015 and 2025 across HCI, CSCW and social computing, ICTD, digital and public health, and AI for well-being scholarship to map the evolving reproductive well-being landscape. We identify three thematic waves that focused on early access and education, cultural sensitivity and privacy, and AI integration with policy-aware design, and highlight how technologies support or constrain diverse reproductive experiences. Our analysis reveals critical gaps in inclusivity, with persistent exclusions of men and non-binary users, migrants, and users in the Global South. Additionally, we surfaced the significant absence of literature on the role of stakeholders (e.g., husband and family members, household maids and cleaning helping hands, midwife, etc.) in the reproductive well-being space. Drawing on the findings from the literature, we propose the ReWA framework to support reproductive well-being for all agenda through six design orientations associated with: location, culture, and history; polyvocality and agency; rationality, temporality, distributive roles, and methodology.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Innovative Human-Technology Interaction ICT in Developing Communities Mobile Health and mHealth Applications

Publication details

Journal / source
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Volume
10
Issue
6
Pages
1–33
Publication date
23 September 2026
Language
EN