Research Teams to Study How Digital Games Improve Health

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has announced more than $1.85 million in grants for research that will offer unprecedented 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 popular 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 innovative projects that may lead to breakthrough 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 a leading 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.