Addiction, research, health in a virtual world
We’ve covered Karuna previously for their work with World AIDS Day 2008.
They’ve now made an open invitation to “HIV/AIDS groups, activists, health professionals, organizations, and educators” to get further involved in collaboration. If you’re interested:
Place: Karuna campfire
Date: March 6, 2009
Time: 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Second Life Time (Pacific Time)
Thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up.
For further information on Karuna, check out their website
A yearly highlight in Second Life is the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. The 2007 and 2008 events were big successes, with more than 55 million Linden Dollars (approximately 200 thousand US dollars).
Teams have started forming and if any health-related teams are forming, do let us know and we’ll promote your fundraising efforts. The team registration form can be found here.
The Second Life version of the Relay achieves the same community vibe as the real-world one and it’s an opportunity to remember those lost to cancer, to support those currently fighting cancer and to help find more effective treatments for cancers.
Thanks to SL Entrepreneur Magazine for the heads-up.
Two snippets I’ve run across this week:
1. An interesting Second Life event:
The annual DREAMS Community Health, Education and Art Fair will be held from February the 15th through the 28th. This will be the 5th year for the fair at Dreams.
Each year the Dreams Community Fair is provided as an outreach program to connect & educate SL residents about support groups and their services with an emphasis on health related groups.
The fair is filled with group presentations; booths of information, SL related classes, live performances, talks and more!
The ever popular “Linden Dunk Tank Day” will return and is tentatively scheduled for Friday the 20th from 2pm to 6pm SLT
2. A useful article on health education and virtual worlds was featured in a 2008 issue of Telehealth World ezine (page 8). Better late than never mentioning this.
The usually tabloid Second Life Herald have an interesting but short interview with a Dutch hypnotherapist who conducts therapy in Second Life.
Of course, there’s nothing new about therapy in Second Life – our sister site The Metaverse Journal interviewed two counsellors back in March 2007 – you can read that interview here.
If you run any form of counselling in a virtual world, we’d love to hear from you.
Over the past few weeks, there’s been a spike in mainstream media interest around virtual environments and health. I thought it’d be worth showcasing three notable stories / issues that you may not be aware of. Amputee Support A press release from ADL Company Inc. and Virtual Ability, Inc. touts the launch of a project [...]
Over the past couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to chat with Andrew Campbell on a couple of occasions. As Director of the Prometheus Research Team, Andrew is heavily involved in the area of mental health and technology. I’ve always been struck by Andrew’s objective view of gaming and virtual worlds, which he rightly [...]
Health researchers working in Second Life will know of Maged Kamel Boulos’ site: Web 2.0 and the 3D Web (Virtual Worlds and Second Life®). It’s not the prettiest site on the planet but it’s an absolute treasure trove of links to areas in Second Life with a health and education focus. There’s also plenty of [...]
One of the advantages of being a regular (daily) observer of virtual worlds news, is you get a fair idea of trends. One growth trend over recent months has been the interest in the health applications of virtual environments. One of the better pieces of media coverage is one by the Wall Street Journal. It’s [...]
There’s a small but growing group in Second Life called Healthcare Education. The group was founded by the University of Michigan’s Patricia Anderson (SL: Perplexity Peccable) and a seminar series has been organised for the 26th September at 7.00am SL time (Midnight on the 26th AET). The event will be held on Health EduIsland and [...]
The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research continues to go from strength to strength, and the current edition is devoted to health and virtual worlds. I’ll be writing about some of the specific pieces in coming weeks, but you’ll see the full table of contents below: Table of Contents Editor’s Corner Musings on the State of [...]
We’ve covered maternity simulations previously, but I though this one was worth passing on as well. The University of Nottingham have created a maternity ward and they’ve produced a ten-minute machinima outlining its aims and outcomes to date. You can read more about the University’s work more broadly in Second Life here, or watch the [...]
A quick post to wish everyone the best for the coming year. I’ve made some broader predictions for the coming year, but I’m particularly excited about the prospects in regards to health interventions, research or education. It’s still relatively early days, but over the past year I’ve been struck by some of the great work [...]
Back in January we promoted a study being undertaken by Doctorate student Jon-Paul Cacioli on body image in virtual worlds (the study participants need to be aged 18 or over and be male). Click here for the survey link The response over recent months has been good be Jon-Paul needs a few more people to [...]
The UK’s Telegraph newspaper has run a very interesting article on the issue of addiction and World of Warcraft. The key quote for me from the article, from Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Richard Graham: He has called on Blizzard Entertainment, the company that makes World of Warcraft, to waive or discount the costs associated with joining [...]
The ever-growing number of health-related projects occurring in virtual worlds continues to seep through to the academic literature. On the 18th December, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published an article titled Web 3D for Public, Environmental and Occupational Health: Early Examples from Second Life. The abstract: Over the past three years [...]
The University of Arkansas have their hospital well underway in Second Life. Dubbed ‘Razorback Hospital’, it’s purpose isn’t clinical in nature, more a prototype of how technologies like motion sensors and RFID can assist the functioning of a hospital. It’s all about health logistics. The goals of the project are: 1. Explore the future of [...]