Health Games Research is a national program that provides scientific leadership and resources to advance the research, design, and effectiveness of digital games and game technologies that promote health. It is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio and headquartered at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  The Pioneer Portfolio supports innovative projects that may lead to breakthroughs in the future of health and health care.

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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Health Games Research brochure

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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 »

• Take a look at our new, improved Health Games Research Database. Some of the new features include improved search capabilities, saving searches, flagging favorites, and easily discovering what's new.

• The first issue of the Games for Health Journal is available. This peer-reviewed journal includes studies of health games and news from the field. The first issue, February 2012, is free online.
  

• The 8th annual Games for Health Conference will take place June 12-14, 2012 in Boston, MA. 

• Research by Health Games Research grantee Cay Anderson-Hanley, of Union College, and her colleague Paul Arciero, of Skidmore College, has found that cybercycling improves seniors' cognitive health.