Games for Health 2010

By Michelle Samplin-Salgado, AIDS.gov New Media Strategist

We attended the Games for Health 2010 conference in Boston, Massachusetts to learn more about how video games and virtual worlds are being used to increase physical activity, train health care providers, and advocate HIV/AIDS information and prevention methods among youth. Now in its 6th year, the three-day conference was developed in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to convene public healthcare professionals and providers with game developers to bring innovative solutions to everyday issues in public health.

We talked to Lynn Fiellin, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine . Dr. Fiellin is Principal Investigator for a NIH-funded project to develop a behavioral changing HIV prevention video game. We asked her to tell us about her project, why she chose video games as an intervention for HIV and what advice she had for the HIV/AIDS community.

Using Games in Public Health (Part 2 of "Let the Games Begin")

This week we are continuing the second part of our two-part series on video games and public health. Last week we spoke with Tina Hoff, Vice President and Director of Entertainment Media Partnerships at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Marguerita Lightfoot of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and David Galiel, an expert on new media with experience in game development.

Let the Games Begin

We've been noticing a lot of press about video games lately. Grand Theft Auto IV is flying off the shelves. It sold 60 million copies in the first week. Other games, like Guitar Hero and games for Nintendo's Wii gaming system, continue to increase in popularity. At AIDS.gov, we're interested in video games as one more way to reach people with important HIV/AIDS messages and possibly influence their behaviors. So, this week we begin a two-part series on the subject.