Health information delivered as a video game can bridge the communication gap between patients and providers

Imagine you and your partner are sitting in the waiting room of your doctor’s office, waiting for your appointment to get birth control – and instead of calculating how many other people will be called before you, or perusing old magazines, a nurse hands you a digital tablet and encourages you to play a game. You power it on, and you find yourselves drawn into a story: Can you help Laila and Caleb figure out which contraceptive method will work best for them, given their lifestyles and Laila’s physiology? Their situation, you realize, is a bit similar to your own. Would helping them choose a form of contraception help you and your partner make an informed decision for yourselves? As a designer and developer of games that promote positive health behavior change, I work with physicians, public health experts, artists and programmers to create games just like these. I focus on topics like vaccine hesitancy, sexuality and reproductive health – sensitive issues that people may have a hard time discussing openly. Laila and Caleb are characters in a game that my team and I are developing called What’s My Method? We are testing whether playing it helps people choose a…

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