Video Gaming for Health: Major New Trends to Be Discussed as National Conference Gets Underway

The latest gaming for health trends including "exergaming," health elements in popular commercial games (e.g. a disease being unleashed inadvertently on the population in World of Warcraft) and sophisticated, new video games used to train emergency medical personnel will be outlined during a live, two-way phone-based blogger/online news event at 1:00 PM EDT, Thursday, May 8.

The special news briefing for bloggers and other online media will take place on the opening day of the May 8-9 Games for Health Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

News event speakers will be:

·         Ben Sawyer, co-founder, the Games for Health Project

·         Chinwe Onyekere, program officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundations Pioneer Portfolio

The conference will explore the intersection of next-generation game technologies and health issues. Founded in 2004, the Games for Health Project supports community, knowledge and business development efforts to use cutting-edge games and game technologies to improve health and health care. The Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the lead conference sponsor and a major supporter of the Games for Health Project.

To Participate

You can join this live, phone-based blogger/online news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1:00 PM ET on May 8 by dialing 800.860.2442. Ask for the "Health and Video Games news event.

Cant Participate?

A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at www.gamesforhealth.org as of 6:00 PM EDT on May 8. 

The Games for Health Project is produced by the Serious Games Initiative, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars effort that applies cutting-edge games and game technologies to a range of public and private policy, leadership and management issues. The project also produces the Games for Health Conference, now in its fourth year. The Initiative founded Games for Health to develop a community and best practices platform for the numerous games being built for health care applications. To date, the project has brought together researchers, medical professionals and game developers to share information about the impact games and game technologies can have on health, health care and policy. For more information, visit www.gamesforhealth.org.