Health Games Research is a national program that funds research to advance the innovation and effectiveness of digital games and game technologies intended to improve health. It is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio and is headquartered at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

There is both an art and a science to designing health games that are appealing, engaging, and impactful.  Health Games Research provides the science.

We work with creative game designers and artists to integrate well tested principles of learning and health behavior change into games that motivate players to improve their health habits and take better care of their health problems. 
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Research Briefs

• Game Changer:  Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health (Executive Summary) by Ann My Thai, David Lowenstein, Dixie Ching, and David Rejeski, The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop
• Social Connection and Anonymity in Health Games by James Watt, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus and Affiliate Researcher, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
• More Research Briefs >>

Featured Colleagues

• David Warhol, Founder and President, Realtime Associates, Inc., El Segundo, CA
• Barbara Chamberlin, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Extension Instructional Design and Educational Media Specialist, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
• More Featured Colleagues >>

• Health Games Research is working with Games for Health and the IGDA to support Game Jams to develop health games for the Apps for Healthy Kids competition.  See the press release about our partnership.
• Now available - the Health Games Research Database! Search for information in the health games field related to games, publications, resources, organizations, and more.  Hundreds of health games are included.
• Read news stories about Health Games Research, including a recent posting called Massive Health Games Database Goes Live, by Melanie Lazarus on the healthGAMERS blog.