My news feeds have been much abuzz with talk of the newly announced journal, Games for Health: Research Development, and Clinical Applications. Gaming for health is a topic we’ve been covering here at Pulse + Signal, so when we heard the news, we caught up with the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Bill Ferguson, for a Q & A.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., the publishers of the anticipated journal, hope to bring greater cohesion to the field of health games with its launch in early 2012. In addition to peer-reviewed articles, the journal will feature product news and reviews, as well as reports from the field. Read on for more detail…

BC: Why launch an academic journal for games for health?

BF: Health games are perhaps the most powerful new tools for the prevention and treatment of health issues.  I was asked by Mary Ann Liebert, the founder of our company, to attend the most recent games for health conference in Boston this past May to see if the field of health related games had matured to the point where the researchers, game developers, therapists, end users and so on would benefit from a dedicated journal.  I was very impressed by the depth and breadth of research going on in universities as well as the many very practical uses of games to improve the well-being of people with many different challenges.  Many of the key people I met including Debra Lieberman of the University of California at Santa Barbara, Paul Tarini of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Ben Sawyer, the organizer of the conference, enthusiastically supported the idea of a journal dedicated to games for health.

BF: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been a powerful force in health games research. At present, they have no official role in the journal although many of their grantees are on our editorial board.

BC: Who’s brain child is the new journal?

BF: If you take a moment to look at the history of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. you will see that she and our colleagues have been the pioneer publishers in some seventy health and human wellness fields including Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics in which we have worked closely with Sanofi.  Our peer reviewed journals often precede public awareness of emerging health sciences as is the case with Games for Health:  Research, Development, and Clinical Applications.

BC: Published articles will be peer reviewed, is that correct? With the diverse mix of developers, clinicians and researchers working in the field, how will reviewers be chosen? 

BF: Yes, in addition to field reports, product reviews and news from the field, our content will feature peer reviewed research papers.  Two of our key editorial board members, Dr. Lieberman, whom I mentioned, and Tom Baranowski, PhD of Baylor University will help me to determine and enlist appropriate reviewers for each submitted paper.  We are currently putting together our website and I will be issuing a call for papers very soon.

BC: Are there plans to make the journal open source? If not, how can we gain access?

BF: The journal will be available by subscription in print and online.  The Games for Health:  Research, Development, and Clinical Applications website www.liebertpub.com/g4h will feature complimentary sample issues and articles and clear instructions on how to submit articles and information of interest.

BC: How often will the journal be published?

BF: Initially, we will print bi-monthly with the hope that the volume of papers, news, activities and demand will drive us to monthly publication.

BC: Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about the journal?

BF: I’d like your readers to know that they now have a forum to share their advancements, developments and interests in the field of games for health as well as a single source for leading edge news.  It is our goal to be a powerful vehicle for sharing and shaping this important new field.  Your contributions are welcome in Games for Health:  Research, Development, and Clinical Applications.

–
Bridgette Collado for Pulse + Signal

Follow Bridgette at twitter.com/bcollado

Last week at the Games for Health 2011 conference, Dr. Doris Rusch (MIT-Singapore GAMBIT Game Lab) presented her groundbreaking game, Elude. Elude is not like most games – its intention is not to “play” but just the opposite. A beautifully designed metaphor, Elude is a  tool for people supporting others with depression.

For people who have never experienced it before, depression is difficult to understand. It is not simply sadness, as many may think; it is more akin to an all-encompassing hopelessness, a failure to connect to or derive meaning from the outside world. By tapping into the experiential aspects of the video game medium, Elude’s metaphoricalmodel for depression serves to bring awareness to the realities of depression by creating empathy with those who live with depression every day. (GAMBIT Labs)

Sitting in the dark hall, the music, scenes, and up- and downward visual pull of the game quickly sent my emotions astir. This trailer gives you a taste.

Elude is designed for the clinical setting, as part of a psycho-education package for friends and family of those living with depression. As I sat imagining this play out between clinician, client and family, my mind wandered to health literacy and realized that this type of education doesn’t fit in our current definitions. According to Healthy People health literacy is “the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions.” What about the ability to empathize with others’ and their health struggles?

This has caused me to contemplate our current definitions of health literacy. Would the inclusion of empathy be too complex? Does it even make sense in the context of health literacy? As a society we certainly push for awareness of health conditions, with new awareness days/weeks/months cropping up regularly. Do we strive to understand though?

What do you think? Are we too restrictive in our definition of health literacy? Please leave me your comments and links to conversations I may have missed!

- Bridgette

Bridgette Collado is a free-lance health communication consultant and recent addition to the Pulse + Signal team. You can find her on twitter as@bcollado.

The Kaiser Family Foundation – one of my  favorite sources for news on healthcare and public/global health news showed up on my radar recently with this very entertaining way of explaining the state of health reform.

Starring the YouToons (who have a striking resemblance to Nintendo Wii’s “Mii” characters) and narrated by Cokie Roberts, the short video goes over what hasn’t  been working and what is being put into place to make the healthcare system better. Great work by the awesome folks over at Free Range Studios.

Gives me some ideas on introducing public health concepts to elementary/middle school students. Who doesn’t love a cartoon?

So I’m really excited to announce that I was selected to be part of a new social media mentoring program at Purdue University (@mindofandre is my Twitter tag)! Thanks to the wonderful Dr. Mihaela Vorvoreanu, a professor focusing on new communication technologies, I will be partnering up with one of her graduate students to guide them along understanding the social media landscape. I have the honor of connecting with Jennifer Smock (@smocktweets on Twitter), a graduate student earning her Masters in Public Health (MPH). Jennifer’s interests focus on the use of new media to improve the field of public health, with her current research highlighting how the public feels about season flu and H1N1 vaccinations.

Especially within the context of social media, I want to emphasize the term partnership. Although it’s considered a mentoring program, I strongly feel that all of us are learning together regarding this new landscape. I am hardly a guru (or expert, specialist, or any other title that I feel misleads) but I do really enjoy learning everyday and am passionate about finding out how best to apply these new ideas to public health. I’ve been involved in one way or another with social networks and new media for a couple years now so I have an increased understanding and appreciation for what these tools can do.

So please feel free to check out Jenny’s blog, leave comments there and stay tuned for guest posts from her on what she is learning.

As I tell my young nieces and nephews – education is one of those things that no one can take away from you. It’s the universal key to success in life.

Hey folks, it’s no secret that after I was inundated with extensive creativity and innovation at the last San Francisco based Health 2.0 conference, I was bright eyed about games for health. Well, over the past few months I have become an avid fan of one of the companies that demo’d their products – Playnormous. After the conference I had to look them up and was happy to see that their target audience were young kids – helping them to learn healthy habits and ideals in a society where the opposite bombard them constantly through television, the Web and yes even through video games.

I’m always interested to see what new technologies and tools of interactive engagement are being used to further health initiatives and right now the healthy gaming industry is molten lava hot. I don’t have to tell you how well the Nintendo Wii is doing with making huge strides in changing the way people think about exercise. But who’s to say that I don’t want to continue telling you how well things are going?

Which leads me to the reason I wrote this for all of you.

A new blog has been unveiled to the public from the great people behind Playnormous, to bring you fresh, current and interesting points of view on the growing applications of the healthy gaming movement. The blog, healthGAMERS, is focused on taking a look at some of the innovations around game-based technology to improve public health. One of the coolest parts of the blog launch is that Playnormous got in touch with me and asked me to be a co-author! Of course I was thrilled and couldn’t turn it down.

So check out healthGAMERS for those of you interested in how the video/computer/interactive game world is makin waves to improve our health and the health of our kids. For some added coolness, check out a clip of Playnormous being featured on the local ABC news recently. If you are interested in writing for healthGAMERS, please feel free to contact me!

Finally, here is a video of the Playnormous presentation from the Health 2.0 conference breakout session last year. I took this on a Flip camera so it isn’t best quality (will have to turn up the volume) but it’s pretty cool.

Much like many others on the Web who are into learning about how social media impacts communities, I’m an avid reader of the material Chris Brogan puts out. A few days ago, I caught up with a post of his where he did a video blog post highlighting a few books that he finished reading which all had a theme about making positive impact.

Lately, I have been getting back into reading some of the books I have on my own bookshelf, such as Influencer, Citizen Marketers and Making Health Communication Programs Work (otherwise affectionately known as the Pink Book). You could say that I am on a knowledge quest. And despite the tons of information that can be found online, books will never get old with me. Books on social entrepreneurship and changing the world for the better are always on my radar, which is why I was happy to see Chris pointing out a few I hadn’t heard of yet. Check it out and the book links below:

Books featured in Video:

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood

The Generous Man by Tor Norretranders

Yesterday morning, I had the great opportunity to attend the State of the Art of New Media in Health Care: Harnessing the Power of Digital Communication and Social Networking Tools conference held at the Newseum in downtown Washington, DC. The event was put on by Amplify Public Affairs, a “next generation in public affairs” firm integrating new media and traditional communications. Now of course the theme of this meeting is right up the alley of what gets covered on Pulse and Signal, so I was definitely happy to be able to attend. The question of how is new media affecting the health care world is popping up more and more, especially with the advent of Google Health, Microsoft’s Health Vault and the various online health social networks. I was eager to hear exactly what the panelists would be talking about – hopefully not just about their companies but to add some real thought to this growing landscape. Here were the people that spoke on the panel (in order of speaking):

» Elisabeth Goodridge, US News & World Report

» Joel Selzer, Ozmosis

» Matt Koll, Revolution Health

» Christopher Fleming, Health Affairs blog

» Ed Fishel, University of Maryland, News Bureau

Below I will touch upon some notes I took while listening to each presenter:

Elisabeth touched on a few items that showed how US News & World Report evolved from just a print publication to one that has integrated several elements of digital media including a list of affiliated bloggers, video, shareable articles and an upcoming widget library with embeddable content. I think one of the last times that I took a good hard look at what the publication could offer, it was when I was selecting colleges to attend. They also have a list of Best Hospitals that is very useful.

Joel has created a very interesting social networking platform for physicians, these include licensed MDs and DOs. A few reasons in which Joel created Ozmosis was because of the steadily increasing patient load for doctors (less time for them to interact with the patient), physicians having little time to find the answers for detailed patient questions and the fact that many physicians were turning to the Internet to locate information – trusted information is the top priority.

Matt spoke about how Revolution Health is transforming how social media is used in the consumer healthcare world. They also own CarePages and HealthTalk – both being focused on community health support. I felt that there was heavy discussion on advertising and business models, so I’m assuming that is where the organization is at this point in their growth. I’m looking forward to see what else comes from Revolution Health in the future.

Christopher also spoke from a once print only publication point of view. The Health Affairs journal, which recently celebrated its 25th year of being in print, has taken steps to embrace social media within its content production. The journal’s blog includes staff and guest bloggers. The staff members generally write about articles already printed in the journal while the guest bloggers create shorter, more advocacy based articles that usually correlate to a health policy issue. As the blog began expanding policy discussions to different areas, it helped to attract readers to the actual journal material. Currently, Chris and the Health Affairs team are looking to increase staff to assist in the growing and maintenance of the blog.

Finally, Ed touched on the changes involved in moving from old media and journalism to adopting new methods of disseminating news and information. I think that this will be an ongoing discussion (and struggle) for some time. Many people still do not see the value of this change in the media landscape but it’s good to know that there are a handful of people in certain professions willing to lead the charge.

Overall, I had a great time and picked up on a few thoughts regarding what exactly might need to be done regarding health communication efforts. It was nice hearing the various voices from different industries speak on what they are accomplishing – I really think that the aspects of Health 2.0 that were presented will be one of many to shape the way we stay healthy.

Not too long ago while I was catching up on my mountain of RSS feeds in Google Reader, I was perusing one of my favorite health-related blogs, DiabetesMine. I really enjoy reading DiabetesMine, authored by the wonderful Amy Tenderich, mainly because she has successfully created a community around those living with diabetes. Earlier this year when Amy got some time in the spotlight, it really started my brain motors turning about how we can spread the word about health issues in society and how people who are passionate about seeing change can catch the interest of many.

Amy is doing that again with the 2nd Annual DiabetesMine™ Design Challenge. She writes:

“[the] competition [is] designed to foster innovation in diabetes design and encourage creative new tools that will improve life with diabetes.”

The great part about this competition is that it incorporates many different elements related to the improvement of technology focused on helping people stay healthy and having the upper hand when it comes to handling their diabetes.

This contest is no small event either – it’s being supported by MedGadget, (Internet journal focused on highlighting emerging medical technologies), world famous design firm IDEO and probably most importantly, by 2 young brothers who have been living with Type 1 diabetes and are eager to see some changes in technology. And if the idea of being able to enter your design into this potentially industry changing opportunity doesn’t urge you enough, there are also other very nice prizes:

Two of the most enticing design concepts will win a package of prizes to help further their creative efforts: $1,000 in cash, some pro-bono professional advice from world-renowned design experts, and free access to the next Health 2.0 conference for one adult winner.

Please take some time to think about how you can contribute – submit your idea, spread the word! This is absolutely the epitome of how I want to help change the health world. Let’s add in excitement, innovation, design, passion, technology and social media! Let’s gather our minds and great ideas together so that we can live comfortable and QUALITY lives!

I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while now and I just was able to locate a useful piece of media for it. Thanks to Chris Condayan (@csuspect on Twitter) for the video!

Ok, so cough/cold/flu season is technically over you say? That may be true but the information in that video transcends seasons. Remember when your parents told you to cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze? Yeah that sounds polite but can actually be pointless in the prevention of spreading germs if you don’t wash your hands.

With most of us clickity-clackin away on the keyboard at work and manuevering the mouse over the keypad, our hands are frequenting surfaces that we use over and over again. So think about it, if you are at your desk and you sneeze into your hand and continue typing – what do you think is going to happen? The germs are going to be transferred to your keyboard and most likely your mouse as well. And then you shake hands with your co worker, congratulating them on a promotion. And then use the doorknob to leave building. I think you get my point.

Here are a few tips I thought of to help you keep the sniffles away from yourself and others in the workplace as well as your home:

1. Wash your hands frequently. Especially before eating a meal.
2. When coughing or sneezing (especially when you have a cold), do so inside your sleeve, right by your elbow or further above. When you do this, you can just toss your shirt in the laundry and wash those germs away. If you use a piece of Kleenex, still be sure to wash your hands afterward.
3. Have some of those Clorox wipes handy – they are great for wiping down surfaces on your desk and getting rid of any germs hanging around. Might be a good idea to wipe down your keyboard and mouse at the end of each week.
4. Hand sanitizers! Great stuff and alot of them come in tiny dispensers that you can carry around in your pocket or purse. If you can’t wash your hands, this is the next best thing.
5. If you’re sick and sneezing/coughing all over the place, do everyone a favor and stay home. Trying to keep a perfect record (like the guy in the video) quickly turns into “How many other people can I make sick the fastest”. Don’t be that guy/girl.

Coughing into your hands isn’t going to help when you shake someone’s hand in the next 5 minutes. I know this seems like common sense stuff but sometimes we all need a reminder!

One of the most pressing public health issues of our times, has been the scourge of HIV/AIDS. The disease – which began to gain notoriety and attention throughout the 1980′s – has crippled the lives of many Americans, most often bringing unwelcome stigmas and lifelong medication treatments.

A particular class I took in college (as a matter of fact, it was the class that brought me from engineering to the public health world), was focused on disease prevention. Among diseases like diabetes and tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS was usually at the top of the list of diseases that needed focused attention to cure/eradicate. Now that we are in the 2000s and in an age of advanced communication, many of the details related to the disease itself – as well as cutting edge research working toward a cure – can be effectively disseminated to the lay audience. For far too long, the darker side of word of mouth communication allowed for incorrect insight into the world of those living with the disease. Now we can change that…

A good example of technology (more specifically the social web) being used to inform the public is the recently launched AIDS.gov blog. AIDS. gov is the official website of the Department of Health and Human Services‘ communication on the HIV/AIDS issue. Their willingness to delve into the social media aspect of communication should be applauded in itself. This is what I’m talking about when I mention thoughts on how social technology can help the health world. Health is about people. How people live, eat and interact…and also learn. The site does a great job of introducing people to the disease and the blog seems to facilitate a way for people to interact with how the government is handling the issue.

This is of course a vulnerable position as there is always the tendency for the public to not always trust government leadership. This is a great step in the right direction. The HIV/AIDS dilemma is a big one – a global one. And from my point of view, problems can be solved faster by having more people truly understand what is at stake.

Bottom line is, as we continue to become more connected, more vocal about what is going on in our lives, it’s important to not only become knowledgeable about these issues but also to provide feedback regarding solutions. Especially in the realm of health – it’s not about what the government can provide, it’s not about a “professional” tackling the problem for us. Our better health future relies on you – it relies on me – to make forward progress. Get educated about health issues that matter to you…and then give back.