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RWJF Financing Study on How Digital Games Improve Players' Health
Nov 10, 2009 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) --
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced more than $1.85 million in grants for research that will offer insight into how digital games can improve players' health behaviors and outcomes.
With funding from RWJF's Health Games Research national program, nine research teams across the country will conduct extensive studies to discover, for example, how the dance pad video game Dance Dance Revolution might help Parkinson's patients reduce the risk of falling, how Wii Active might be most effectively implemented in high schools to help overweight students lose weight, how a mobile phone game with a breath interface might help smokers quit or reduce their tobacco use, or how facial recognition games might be designed to help people with autism learn to identify others' emotions.
Health Games Research is supported by an $8.25 million grant from RWJF's Pioneer Portfolio, which funds projects that may lead to improvements in the future of health and health care. The national program, which conducts, supports, and disseminates research to improve the quality and impact of health games, is headquartered at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It is directed by Debra Lieberman, Ph.D., communication researcher in the university's Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research and an expert in the research and design of interactive media for learning and health behavior change. The grants were awarded under the program's second funding round to strengthen the evidence base in this emerging field.
"Digital games are interactive and experiential, and so they can engage people in powerful ways to enhance learning and health behavior change, especially when they are designed on the basis of well-researched strategies," said Lieberman. "The studies funded by Health Games Research will provide cutting-edge, evidence-based strategies that designers will be able to use in the future to make their health games more effective."
The nine research teams, chosen from among 185 proposals, each have been awarded between $100,000 and $300,000 to lead one- to two-year studies of digital games that engage players in physical activity and/or motivate them to improve how they take care of themselves through healthy changes in lifestyle; prevention behaviors; cognitive, social or physical skills; chronic disease self-management; and/or adherence to a medical treatment plan. Studies will focus on diverse population groups that vary by race and ethnicity, health status, income level, and game-play setting, with age groups ranging from elementary school children to 80-year-olds. The research teams will study participants' responses to health games played on a variety of platforms, such as video game consoles, computers, mobile phones and robots.
"The pace of growth and innovation in digital games is incredible, and we see tremendous potential to design them to help people stay healthy or manage chronic conditions like diabetes or Parkinson's disease. However, we need to know more about what works and what does not -- and why," said Paul Tarini, team director for RWJF's Pioneer Portfolio. "Health Games Research is a major investment to build a research base for this dynamic young field. Further, the insights and ideas that flow from this work will help us continue to expand our imagination of what is possible in this arena."
The nine grant recipients are:
- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) Reward Circuitry, Autism and Games that Teach Social Perceptual Skills -- tests effects of facial perception games on the brain activity and facial perception skills of 8- to 12-year-old children who have been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
- George Washington University (Washington, DC) Active-Adventure: Investigating a Novel Exergaming Genre in Inner City School Physical Education Programs -- compares physical, psychological and behavioral effects of three activities.
- Georgetown University (Washington, DC) Wii Active Exergame Intervention for Low-Income African-American Obese and Overweight Adolescents -- assigns obese and overweight urban high school students to (1) play the Wii Active competitively after school with the goal of lowering their body mass index (BMI), (2) play the Wii Active cooperatively in a team after school with the goal of helping each other reduce their BMI, or (3) play with no access to Wii Active after school (control condition).
- Long Island University (Brooklyn, NY) Dance Video Game Training and Falling in Parkinson's Disease -- compares the use of a commercially available dance pad video game, Dance Dance Revolution, to two traditional treatment options that help people with Parkinson's Disease reduce their risk of falling by increasing their balance, strength, endurance, motor coordination and visual-motor integration.
- Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) Buddy Up! Harnessing Group Dynamics to Boost Motivation to Exercise. Research has found that people will work harder with a partner in a strenuous physical task than when working alone, especially if the partner is moderately better at the task.
- Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) Short-Term and Long-Term Effectiveness of Exergames for Young Adults -- investigates effects of the Mount Olympus game, a 3D fantasy role-playing game that requires players to move their upper and lower body in order to control their character's movements throughout the world of the game.
- Teachers College, Columbia University (New York, NY) Lit: A Game Intervention for Nicotine Smokers -- develops and evaluates a smoking reduction game delivered on a mobile phone.
- University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA) A Video Game to Enhance Cognitive Health in Older Adults. As people age, they lose some of their ability to sustain their attention and to focus their attention on their main task while ignoring distractions. This study aims to improve these and other related cognitive skills by using a driving game in which players practice paying attention to relevant information, such as traffic signs, and ignoring irrelevant information, such as billboards.
- University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) Robot Motivator: Towards Adaptive Health Games for Productive Long-Term Interaction -- examines the influence of virtual social characters on people's motivation to exercise.
((Comments on this story may be sent to newsdesk@closeupmedia.com))
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