Abstract
Quality of life has been defined as a multi-dimensional concept, that includes domains related to physical, mental, emotional, and social dimensions (Karimi & Brazier, Pharmacoeconomics, 2016). Along with other prominent factors such as labor market opportunities, education, and housing, health has been identified as a paramount and modifiable factor that can improve the quality of life for not only individuals, but for communities and nations as a whole (African Development Bank Group, Annual development effectiveness review 2017: transforming Africa, 2017). Though adolescents in Africa have experienced increases in access to education, more job opportunities, and longer lifespans when compared to previous generations, many inter-connected factors continue to adversely affect their quality of life. Furthermore, given that these adolescents are growing up in a different generation, novel approaches and interventions to impact and improve their health, well-being, and ultimately quality of life are sorely needed. This chapter will explore: (1) general definitions of well-being and its relation to factors associated with quality of life; (2) adolescents in Africa; (3) health burdens in Africa; (4) Serious Games; (5) Games for health on a global scale and (6) Games for health in Africa. In this chapter the term adolescent will refer to those individuals who are 10–19 years old and the term young people will include those who are 20–24 years old.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abt, C. C. (1970). Serious games: The art and science of games that simulate life. New York, NY: Viking Compass Book.
African Development Bank Group. (2017). Annual development effectiveness review 2017: Transforming Africa.
Agyepong, I. A., Sewankambo, N., Binagwaho, A., Coll-Seck, A. M., Corrah, T., Ezeh, A., … Mayosi, B. (2017). The path to longer and healthier lives for all Africans by 2030: The Lancet Commission on the future of health in sub-Saharan Africa. The Lancet, 390(10114), 2803–2859.
Alderman, H., Hoddinott, J., & Kinsey, B. (2006). Long term consequences of early childhood malnutrition. Oxford Economic Papers, 58(3), 450–474.
Andrew, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of Well-being (Vol. 20, p. 31). New York and London: Plenum.
Bain, L. E., Awah, P. K., Geraldine, N., Kindong, N. P., Siga, Y., Bernard, N., & Tanjeko, A. T. (2013). Malnutrition in Sub–Saharan Africa: Burden, causes and prospects. Pan African Medical Journal, 15(1).
Bainbridge, W. (2007). The scientific research potential of virtual worlds. Science, 317, 472–476.
Bandura, A. (1994). Social cognitive theory and exercise of control over HIV infection. In Preventing AIDS (pp. 25–59). Boston, MA: Springer.
Baranowski, T., Buday, R., Thompson, D. I., & Baranowski, J. (2008). Playing for real: Video games and stories for health-related behavior change. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 34(1), 74–82.
Baranowski, T., Lin, L. S., Wetter, D. W., Resnicow, K., & Hearn, M. D. (1997). Theory as mediating variables: Why aren’t community interventions working as desired? Annals of Epidemiology, 7(7), S89–S95.
BBC Country Profile. (2018). eSwanti (Swaziland) Country Profile. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14095303. Accessed 14 April 2018.
Camenga, D. R., Hieftje, K. D., Fiellin, L. E., Edelman, E. J., Rosenthal, M. S., & Duncan, L. R. (2014). The use of message framing to promote sexual risk reduction in young adolescents: A pilot exploratory study. Health Education Research, 29(2), 360–366.
Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., & Rodgers, W. L. (1976). The quality of American life: Perceptions, evaluations, and satisfactions. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Central Intelligence Agency World Fact Book. (2018).
Corti, K. (2006). Games-based learning: A serious business application. Coventry, UK: PIXELearning.
Cortina, M. A., Sodha, A., Fazel, M., & Ramchandani, P. G. (2012). Prevalence of child mental health problems in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 166(3), 276–281.
Dahir, A. (2017). Striking contrast: This is the only continent where children have both stunted growth and a rising obesity problem. Quartz Africa.
Dalal, S., Beunza, J. J., Volmink, J., Adebamowo, C., Bajunirwe, F., Njelekela, M., … Holmes, M. D. (2011). Non-communicable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa: What we know now. International Journal of Epidemiology, 40(4), 885–901.
Deaton, A. S., & Tortora, R. (2015). People in Sub-Saharan Africa rate their health and health care among the lowest in the world. Health Affairs, 34(3), 519–527.
Desjardins, J. (2017). How video games became a $100 billion industry.http://www.businessinsider.com/the-history-and-evolution-of-the-video-games-market-2017-1. Accessed 5 June 2018.
Diener, E. (2006). Guidelines for national indicators of subjective well-being and ill-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(4), 397–404.
Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 276.
Duncan, L. R., Hieftje, K. D., Culyba, S., & Fiellin, L. E. (2014). Game playbooks: Tools to guide multidisciplinary teams in developing videogame-based behavior change interventions. Translational Behavioral Medicine, 4(1), 108–116.
Economic and Social Research Council. (2014). The well-being effect of education. Accessed 5 May 2018.
Ferguson, W. (2012). The emergence of games for health. Games for Health Journal, 1(2), 1–2.
Fiellin, L. E., Hieftje, K. D., & Duncan, L. R. (2014). Videogames, here for good. Pediatrics, 134(5), 849–851.
Fiellin, L. E., Kyriakides, T. C., Hieftje, K. D., Pendergrass, T. M., Duncan, L. R., Dziura, J. D., … Fiellin, D. A. (2016). The design and implementation of a randomized controlled trial of a risk reduction and human immunodeficiency virus prevention videogame intervention in minority adolescents: PlayForward: Elm City Stories. Clinical Trials, 13(4), 400–408.
Fiellin, L. E., Hieftje, K. D., Pendergrass, T. M., Kyriakides, T. C., Duncan, L. R., Dziura, J. D., … Fiellin, D. A. (2017). Video game intervention for sexual risk reduction in minority adolescents: Randomized controlled trial. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(9), e314.
Fiorito, A. (2011). Gaming in sub-Saharan Africa. The Four Peaks Review, 1(1), 60–70.
Fisher, J. D., & Fisher, W. A. (1992). Changing AIDS-risk behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 111(3), 455–474.
Fleming, T. M., Bavin, L., Stasiak, K., Hermansson-Webb, E., Merry, S. N., Cheek, C., … Hetrick, S. (2017). Serious games and gamification for mental health: Current status and promising directions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 7, 215.
Font, J. M., Hedvall, A., & Svensson, E. (2017). Towards teaching maternal healthcare and nutrition in rural Ethiopia through a serious game. In Extended abstracts publication of the annual symposium on computer-human interaction in play (pp. 187–193). ACM.
Gallup-Healthway Global Well-being Index (2014). Accessed 10 April 2018.
Gallup-Sharecare Well-being Index. (2017). Accessed 10 Apr 2018.
Global Nutrition Report 2017. (2017). Nourishing the SDGs. Bristol, UK: Development Initiatives.
Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMC). (2017). The mobile economy: Sub-Saharan Africa 017. London.
Hampshire, K., Porter, G., Owusu, S. A., Mariwah, S., Abane, A., Robson, E., … Milner, J. (2015). Informal m-health: How are young people using mobile phones to bridge healthcare gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa? Social Science & Medicine, 142, 90–99.
Hieftje, K., Duncan, L. R., & Fiellin, L. E. (2014). Novel methods to collect meaningful data from adolescents for the development of health interventions. Health Promotion Practice, 15(5), 714–722.
Hieftje, K., Edelman, E. J., Camenga, D. R., & Fiellin, L. E. (2013). Electronic media-based health interventions for behavior change in youth: A systematic review. JAMA Pediatrics, 167(6), 574–580.
Hieftje, K., Rosenthal, M. S., Camenga, D. R., Edelman, E. J., & Fiellin, L. E. (2012). A qualitative study to inform the development of a videogame for adolescent human immunodeficiency virus prevention. GAMES FOR HEALTH: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications, 1(4), 294–298.
Hightow-Weidman, L. B., Muessig, K. E., Bauermeister, J., Zhang, C., & LeGrand, S. (2015). Adolescence, technology, and HIV: Recent advances and future directions. Current HIV/AIDS Reports, 12(4), 500–515.
Hightow-Weidman, L. B., Muessig, K. E., Bauermeister, J. A., LeGrand, S., & Fiellin, L. E. (2017). The future of digital games for HIV prevention and care. Current Opinion in HIV and AIDS, 12(5), 501–507.
HIV Free Generation-Kenya. (2010). Pamoja Mtaani fact sheet.http://www.g-pange.com
Hubal, R., Kizakevich, P., & Furberg, R. (2007). Synthetic characters in health-related applications. In S. Vaidya & H. Yoshida (Eds.), Advanced computational intelligence paradigms in healthcare 2. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.
Johnson, W. L., & Beal, C. (2005). Iterative evaluation of an intelligent game for language learning. Paper presented at: Proceedings of the international conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Karimi, M., & Brazier, J. (2016). Health, health-related quality of life, and quality of life: What is the difference? Pharmacoeconomics, 34(7), 645–649.
Kenyan Ministry of Health. (2016). Kenyan AIDS response progress report 2016, Nairobi, Kenya.
Keyes, C. L., Shmotkin, D., & Ryff, C. D. (2002). Optimizing well-being: The empirical encounter of two traditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(6), 1007.
Kirby, D. (2008). Changes in sexual behaviour leading to the decline in the prevalence of HIV in Uganda: Confirmation from multiple sources of evidence. Sexually Transmitted Infections, 84, ii35–ii41.
Land, K. C. (1975). Social indicators models: An overview. In K. C. Land & S. Spilerman (Eds.), Social indicator models (pp. 5–36). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Lansford, J. E., & Banati, P. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook of adolescent development research and its impact on global policy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Latzoo, K. (2016). 12 facts demonstrating the RISE of a Video Game Industry in Africa. https://medium.com/akoma-media/12-facts-demonstrating-the-rise-of-a-video-game-industry-in-africa-41a7e3ef8dbe. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Lenhart, A., Kahne, J., Middaugh, E., Macgill, A. R., Evans, C., & Vitak, J. (2008). Teens, video games, and civics: Teens’ gaming experiences are diverse and include significant social interaction and civic engagement. Pew internet & American life project. Retrieved online from: http://www.pewinternet.org/2008/09/16/teens-video-games-and-civics/.
Levin, D., & Arafeh, S. (2002). The digital disconnect: The widening gap between internet-savvy students and their schools.
Ludoscience. (2014). Game classification. http://serious.gameclassification.com/. Accessed 25 Apr 2018.
Lukhele, B. W., Musumari, P., El-Saaidi, C., Techasrivichien, T., Suguimoto, S. P., Ono Kihara, M., & Kihara, M. (2016). Efficacy of mobile serious games in increasing HIV risk perception in Swaziland: A randomized control trial (SGprev trial) research protocol. JMIR Research Protocols, 5(4), e224. https://doi.org/10.2196/resprot.6543
Merry, S. N., Stasiak, K., Shepherd, M., Frampton, C., Fleming, T., & Lucassen, M. F. (2012). The effectiveness of SPARX, a computerized self-help intervention for adolescents seeking help for depression: Randomized controlled non-inferiority trial. BMJ, 344, e2598.
Michael, D. R., & Chen, S. L. (2005). Serious games: Games that educate, train, and inform. Roseville, CA: Muska & Lipman/Premier-Trade.
Michalos, A. C. (2017). Education, happiness and well-being. In Connecting the quality of life theory to health, well-being and education (pp. 277–299). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Mitgutsch, K., & Alvarado, N. (2012). Purposeful by design? A serious game design assessment framework. In Proceedings of the international conference on the foundations of digital games (pp. 121–128). ACM.
Murphy, E. M., Greene, M. E., Mihailovic, A., & Olupot-Olupot, P. (2006). Was the “ABC” approach (abstinence, being faithful, using condoms) responsible for Uganda’s decline in HIV? PLoS Medicine, 3(9), e379.
Ngamaba, K. H., Panagioti, M., & Armitage, C. J. (2017). How strongly related are health status and subjective well-being? Systematic review and meta-analysis. The European Journal of Public Health, 27(5), 879–885.
Oblinger, D. (2004). The next generation of educational engagement. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2004(1).
Ohannessian, R., Yaghobian, S., Verger, P., & Vanhems, P. (2016). A systematic review of serious video games used for vaccination. Vaccine, 34(38), 4478–4483.
Paperny, D. M., & Starn, J. R. (1989). Adolescent pregnancy prevention by health education computer games: Computer-assisted instruction of knowledge and attitudes. Pediatrics, 83(5), 742–752.
Patton, G. C., Sawyer, S. M., Santelli, J. S., Ross, D. A., Afifi, R., Allen, N. B., … Kakuma, R. (2016). Our future: A Lancet commission on adolescent health and well-being. The Lancet, 387(10036), 2423–2478.
Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020-Ethiopia. (2017). Adolescents and young women health brief.
Research NGM. The games industry disrupted: 10 key moments towards 2017. http://www.newzoo.com/insights/games-industry-disrupted-10-key-moments-towards-2017/. Accessed 10 Apr 2018.
Reyes-García, V., Babigumira, R., Pyhälä, A., Wunder, S., Zorondo-Rodríguez, F., & Angelsen, A. (2016). Subjective well-being and income: Empirical patterns in the rural developing world. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(2), 773–791.
Schwebel, D. C., Gainesa, J., & Severson, J. (2008). Validation of virtual reality as a tool to understand and prevent child pedestrian injury. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 40(4), 1394–1400.
Serious Game Association. (2014). Serious games directory. http://www.grandmetropolitan.com/. Accessed 25 Apr 2018.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History. (2018). Video game history. https://www.si.edu/spotlight/the-father-of-the-video-game-the-ralph-baer-prototypes-and-electronic-games/video-game-history. Accessed 5 May 2018.
Snow, K. J., Sismanidis, C., Denholm, J., Sawyer, S. M., & Graham, S. M. (2018). The incidence of tuberculosis among adolescents and young adults: A global estimate. European Respiratory Journal, 51(2), 1702352.
Standish, M., & Witters, D. (2016). Americas lead highs, Sub-Saharan Africa lows in well-being.
Stevenson, B., & Wolfers, J. (2013). Subjective well-being and income: Is there any evidence of satiation? American Economic Review, 103(3), 598–604.
Susi, T., Johannesson, M., & Backlund, P. (2007). Serious games: An overview.
Tarini, P. (2012). Curiosity, hope, and vision: The role of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio in funding early health game research. Games for Health Journal, 1(1), 7–8.
Thompson, D., Baranowski, T., Buday, R., Baranowski, J., Thompson, V., Jago, R., & Griffith, M. J. (2010). Serious video games for health: How behavioral science guided the development of a serious video game. Simulation & Gaming, 41(4), 587–606.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211(4481), 453–458.
UNAIDS/WHO. (2004). Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. http://www.unaids.org/bangkok2004/report.html
International Food Policy Research Institute. (2016). Global nutrition report: From promise to impact, ending malnutrition by 2030. Washington, DC.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2017). World population prospects: The 2017 revision, key findings and advance tables (Working Paper No. ESA/P/WP/248).
United Nations Monitoring Report Health, Morbidity, Mortality and Development. (2016).
United Nations Population Fund. (2013). Adolescent pregnancy: A review of the evidence. New York, NY: UNFPA.
United Nations Population Fund. (2015). The power of 1.8 billion: Adolescents, youth and the transformation of the future. New York, NY: UNFPA.
Wolf, M. J., & Iwatani, T. (2015). Video games around the world. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
World Health Organization. (1948). Constitution of WHO. Geneva, Switzerland.
World Health Organization. (2014). Noncommunicable diseases country profiles 2014. Geneva: WHO.
World Health Organization. (2016). Global malaria report 2016. Geneva, Switzerland.
World Health Organization. (2017). Global tuberculosis report 2017. Geneva, Switzerland.
World Health Organization. (2018). Adolescents: Health risks and solutions.
Ybarra, M. L., Korchmaros, J. D., Prescott, T. L., & Birungi, R. (2015). A randomized controlled trial to increase HIV preventive information, motivation, and behavioral skills in Ugandan adolescents. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 49(3), 473–485.
Youth Health Education. (2018). http://www.youthhealtheducation.com.au/six-essential-components-of-health/. Accessed 1 May 2018.
Zyda, M. (2005). From visual simulation to virtual reality to games. Computer, 38(9), 25–32.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pendergrass, T.M., Hieftje, K., Fiellin, L.E. (2019). Improving Health Outcomes and Quality of Life for African Adolescents: The Role of Digital and Mobile Games. In: Eloff, I. (eds) Handbook of Quality of Life in African Societies. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15367-0_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15367-0_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15366-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15367-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)