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New iPad App: Solve the Outbreak

Site Tags: 
Content Strategy, Mobile Apps, Mobile Strategy

Scientists and gamers alike can now play disease detectives through Solve the Outbreak, a new iPad app from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The app lets users play the role of an officer in the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) by navigating three fictional outbreaks based on actual events EIS officers have solved. Players get clues, review data, and make decisions to determine the cause of the outbreak.

Screenshot of Solve the Outbreak game on iPad.

Solve the Outbreak Exit Disclaimer game on iPad

In the game, participants become familiar with health tips, definitions, and information about epidemiology (the study of the causes and effects of health-related events). Players advance in rank as they earn points and can post their results on Facebook and Twitter to challenge their friends and followers. New outbreak cases will be added in the future.  

The game is designed to help the public learn how CDC responds to and solves outbreaks, increasing general knowledge about real-life public health issues. This new approach to organizing and presenting information is intended as an innovative way to engage with the public, which is an overarching principle of the Digital Government Strategy. By developing a game that can be played and shared, the CDC is bringing new meaning to the Strategy’s tenets “anywhere and anytime.”

 This application allows CDC to illustrate the challenges of solving outbreaks and how Agency disease detectives work on the front lines to save lives and protect people 24/7.

The Solve the Outbreak application Exit Disclaimeris available in the iTunes store.

What other health topics do you think would work well as educational games?

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Your Ideas

Submitted by Anonymous on
the link to the itunes app doesn't work. it should start with http://itunes.blah.blah, currently it links to http://tunes.blah.blah
Submitted by Chris, Digital Communications Division/HHS on
Thanks, the link has been corrected
Submitted by Sofia on
Looking for health hazards in the workplace
Submitted by Anonymous on
How Did I Get Chlamydia?
Submitted by Karen on
Not sure
Submitted by Anonymous on
IBS
Submitted by Anonymous on
STD transmission - perhaps a game showing its spread through a college during freshman year?
Submitted by Anonymous on
I have to suggested to my agency (CMS) that they consider approaches to promoting Health Insurance Marketplaces that will appeal to new workers and young workers (key market segments). My suggestion is a role-playing simulation of 'Build a Marketplace Health Plan'. Player roles would include Insurers, Employers, Consumers, Clinicians, and Regulators. Each player would get a fact package about the mythical State of Columbia, and an interest package specific to their role. Players would negotiate and bargain to include or exclude certain benefits and the plan would be scored by the game, based on population covered and cost per person. The app level game could be stepped up with more data and live umpires to something like a Model United Nations approach and marketed to school systems and colleges.
Submitted by Anonymous on
disaster preparedness