253682 Networked Play to Build Personal Wellness Communities

Monday, October 31, 2011: 9:00 AM

Hua (Helen) Wang, PhD , Department of Communication, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY
     
Social network sites and digital games are growing exponentially in recent years and have become an integral part of many people's everyday life in the United States. Scholars and practitioners have been working together to develop health interventions that can leverage personal networks of social ties and fun game play activities to promote behavioral and lifestyle change. Using the framework of entertainment-education in the context of a digital network society, this presentation will introduce and demonstrate the concept of networked play for health communication in a social game and address its benefits and challenges in the design and evaluation processes.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
1. Define entertainment-education, social games, personal communities, and networked play based on a framework of digital entertainment for health promotion 2. Assess the benefits and challenges of using social games to build personal wellness communities and change individual health behaviors 3. Discuss how networked play can be incorporated in larger campaigns for health communication

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: this is my research area and I have first-hand collaborative experiences with scholars and practitioners working in this area and the results shared at this conference are based on rigorous studies.”
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Social and Mobile Media to Improve Community and Individual Health (HCWG)
See more of: Public Health Education and Health Promotion