Mulit-Million Dollar Serious Games Study

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$8.25 Million Research Program to Investigate Design Strategies and Benefits of Interactive Games to Improve Health and Health Care

Efforts Intensify to Strengthen Growing Field, Call for Proposals Announced


(Princeton, NJ, November 12, 2007) The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) today launched Health Games Research, a new national program to support research to enhance the quality and effectiveness of interactive games that are used to improve health. The $8.25 million grant builds on RWJF’s ongoing work to understand the potential for games to improve health and health care, and to forge connections between the games and health fields. Health Games Research will be located at the University of California, Santa Barbara and directed by Debra Lieberman, Ph.D., communication researcher in the university’s Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research.

This grant represents a significant new investment to advance the health-related impact of games by RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio, which supports innovative projects that may lead to breakthrough improvements in the future of health and health care. In 2005, the Pioneer Portfolio made an initial grant to the Games for Health Project, whose work to connect game industry leaders with scholars and health experts heightened interest in the potential for this field to positively influence health. Research has shown that games can help increase players’ physical activity levels, reinforce anti-smoking attitudes or improve young cancer patients’ adherence to their treatment plans. They also provide simulation environments that health care professionals use to hone their skills, and help policy-makers and public health leaders plan for natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks. Growth in this field has underscored the need for more research to understand how games and game technologies can be designed to benefit people’s health and health care.

“Computer and video games are one of today’s fastest-growing media forms. While we have seen dramatic expansion within the health games field, we lack solid evidence to help identify when a game – used alone or in combination with other interventions – can improve people’s health, and what specific difference it makes,” said Chinwe Onyekere, M.P.H. RWJF program officer. “Studies funded through Health Games Research will produce important, action-oriented results that will help this growing field make a meaningful difference in the health and health care of all Americans.”

Computer and video games are an increasingly powerful medium, providing engaging ways for people to learn, be entertained, and connect and communicate with each other. The industry brings in more than $7.4 billion in annual revenue; nearly 70 percent of American heads of households play computer and video games, the average age of players is 33 and more than 40 percent are women. There is enormous opportunity to apply the power of this interactive medium to pressing health and health care challenges. “Research on learning and behavior change with interactive media—including games—has found that they can be very motivating and effective. So it is no surprise to find in the research that playing a welldesigned health game can help improve players’ health behaviors and outcomes,” said Lieberman. “We need more research to develop evidence-based design principles that can be used in future health games and technologies. Studies funded by Health Games Research will make an important contribution toward this goal.”

The first Health Games Research call for proposals, announced today, will award up to $2 million to support studies that investigate principles of effective health game design. In this initial round of funding, grant recipients will focus on games that engage players in physical activity and/or games that promote and improve players’ self-care. The latter category includes games that influence people’s health behaviors and outcomes related to lifestyle, prevention, adherence to medical treatment plans and/or chronic disease self-management. Health Games Research will support a second round of funding in 2009, awarding up to an additional $2 million in grants.

Beyond supporting and disseminating new research, the $8.25 million RWJF grant also will sustain and expand the efforts of the Games for Health Project to bring together game developers and health experts to collaborate and share best practices, virtually and in person. Led by Director Ben Sawyer, the Games for Health Project will spearhead convening and field-building activities including: its popular annual national conference; regional events; competitions to spur the development of new, high-quality games and special partnerships, and; other online and offline forums to strengthen ties between the worlds of game development and health care.

“This major new commitment by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio will take the field of games for health to new levels. Research showing how games actually contribute to better health can help the medium reach far beyond the entertainment realm to help shape key health and policy decisions,” said Sawyer. “Debra Lieberman is a world-class scholar in this area, and we look forward to working with the Health Games Research program to apply the strongest evidence to our collective efforts to strengthen this field.”

The Health Games Research Call for Proposals is available at www.rwjf.org/cfp/healthgamesresearch. Proposals are due January 29, 2008. Potential applicants may contact the program at (888) 635-7433 or visit www.healthgamesresearch.org for more information.