Fight HPV and Cervical Cancer
Background and aim
The project’s aim is to develop a mobile game and evaluate whether social nudging through gamification can boost attendance to cervical cancer screening.
The project started in April 2015 and the app was launched second quarter of 2017.
Cervical cancer can to a large extend be prevented through vaccination and by attending regular cervical cancer screening. However, many women do not attend regular screening and the general knowledge about the main cause for this cancer, the human papillomavirus (HPV), is quite low in the population.
By creating the mobile game 'FightHPV' we strive to help people understand what HPV is, what it is capable of, and how to prevent it.
Use your phone to fight back for your health
The mobile application FightHPV is an educational game developed to provide information about main topics related to HPV. FightHPV consists of six episodes of ten levels each. Each episode describe one aspect related to HPV.
Episode 1 focus on epithelial cells, -the only cell type in your body that the virus are able to infect, while episodes 2 and 3 focus on low, - and high risk HPV, respectively. The final three episodes 4, 5 and 6, sheds light on prevention, vaccination and screening.
Each level starts with a short info text before the player commence to solve an increasingly more complex puzzle. Standard gamification elements such as achievements and leader board are included to increase user engagement.
Easy access
FightHPV is available on Google Play for Android platforms and iTunes for iOS platforms.
FightHPV encourage the player to share lessons learned from the game by spreading the word about HPV and nudge other people to learn more about the virus.
Easy access and nudging facilitate reaching the main target group of women that should attend cervical cancer screening, i.e. women from 25 to 69 years of age.
Status
Recruitment to the study is now closed. We are currently using this data to assess how the FightHPV app has impacted screening attendance. The control group consists of comparable women who have never played FightHPV.
Since its worldwide release in April 2017, FightHPV has been downloaded more than 10.000 times in 47 different countries around the world. Norway, China and USA are the countries with most downloads.
We are working on analysing and publishing the results from the study to show the effect of playing the game on screening attendance. In the meantime, we continue to promote the app and are also continuously working on enhancements to the game and user experience so that it is accessible to most people
Publications
FightHPV: Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Game to Raise Awareness About Human Papillomavirus and Nudge People to Take Action Against Cervical Cancer
JMIR Serious Games, 7 (2), e8540
DOI 10.2196/games.8540, PubMed 30958271
M Nygård, T Ruiz-López (2019)
FightHPV: A game to raise HPV awareness and nudge people to take action against cervical cancer.
www.HPVWorld.com, 83
Gotlieb A, Louarn M, Nygard M, Ruiz-Lopez T, Sen S, Gori R (2017)
Constraint-Based Verification of a Mobile App Game Designed for Nudging People to Attend Cancer Screening
THIRTY-FIRST AAAI CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, 4678-4685
WoS 000485630704101