Aparna Sridhar

Aparna Sridhar MD MPH is a specialist in Obstetrics and Gynecology with special focus on family planning. She completed her basic medical education in India followed by her residency, family planning fellowship and masters of public health in the United States. Her passion for women’s health and family planning stemmed from her student days in India. During her medical school years, she witnessed the problems women could face from lack of adequate contraceptive services and reproductive health education. She enjoys educating medical students and residents about women’s health care. Dr. Sridhar’s research aims to educate future generations about family planning values. She is passionate about integrating technology into family planning education. Her innovative projects include mobile apps, chatbots and comics for contraception. She is currently working with Dr. Bertozzi to engage adolescent boys and girls in a family planning game.

PRESENTATION

Using Games to Collect Public Health Data – 2 Case Studies

The Game Collaborative at Quinnipiac University has developed two games which collect data about players in games related to public health. The goal of the games is to acquire anonymized information through gameplay which can then be utilized to design effective materials to promote positive behavior change. This talk will discuss two projects: the Hot! Horny! Healthy! Game which was developed in collaboration with the National Institute of Health of Mexico (to normalize asking about HIV status and negotiate condom use) and deployed in Mexico City, and game developed in collaboration with Dr. Aparna Sridhar at UCLA and JSS schools in Mysore India (to collect information about family planning intentions) and deployed in rural and urban schools in Karnataka India. Both games were constructed to communicate with a database that collected information about the choices that players made in the game.

This talk will demo both games and discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by this kind of project. Both games address public health problems that have been resistant to more traditional forms of intervention. We will discuss the results of using games to transform the way that information is provided to and collected from a target population.