OBJECTIVE: This study focused on designing a serious game as an experimental program to prevent and control health rumors. The focus of the study was explicitly on the context of the social networking service for midelders/elders.
METHODS: This research involved 2 major parts: adopting the Transmission Control Protocol model for games and then, based on the model, designing a game named "Fight With Virus" as an experimental platform and developing a cognitive questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale. The relevant variables for this experimental study were defined, and 10 hypotheses were proposed and tested with an empirical study. In total, 200 participants were selected for the experiments. By collecting relevant data in the experiments, we conducted statistical observations and comparative analysis to test whether the experimental hypotheses could be proved.
RESULTS: We noted that compared to traditional media, serious games are more capable of inspiring interest in research participants toward their understanding of the knowledge and learning of health commonsense. In judging and recognizing the COVID-19 health rumor, the test group that used game education had a stronger ability regarding identification of the rumor and a higher accuracy rate of identification. Results showed that the more educated midelders/elders are, the more effective they are at using serious games.
CONCLUSIONS: Compared to traditional media, serious games can effectively improve midelders'/elders' cognitive abilities while they face a health rumor. The gameplay effect is related to the individual's age and educational background, while income and gender have no impact.
METHODS: We collected classroom dust from 24 junior high schools in three geographically distanced areas in Malaysia (Johor Bahru, Terengganu and Penang), and conducted culture-independent high-throughput microbiome and untargeted metabolomics/chemical profiling.
RESULTS: 1290 students were surveyed for asthma symptoms (wheeze). In each centre, we found significant variation in the prevalence of wheeze among schools, which could be explained by personal characteristics and air pollutants. Large-scale microbial variations were observed between the three centres; the potential protective bacteria were mainly from phyla Actinobacteria in Johor Bahru, Cyanobacteria in Terengganu and Proteobacteria in Penang. In total, 2633 metabolites and chemicals were characterised. Many metabolites were enriched in low-wheeze schools, including plant secondary metabolites flavonoids/isoflavonoids (isoliquiritigenin, formononetin, astragalin), indole and derivatives (indole, serotonin, 1H-indole-3-carboxaldehyde), and others (biotin, chavicol). A neural network analysis showed that the indole derivatives were co-occurring with the potential protective microbial taxa, including Actinomycetospora, Fischerella and Truepera, suggesting these microorganisms may pose health effects by releasing indole metabolites. A few synthetic chemicals were enriched in high-wheeze schools, including pesticides (2(3H)-benzothiazolethione), fragrances (2-aminobenzoic acid, isovaleric acid), detergents and plastics (phthalic acid), and industrial materials (4,4-sulfonyldiphenol).
CONCLUSIONS: This is the first association study between high-throughput indoor chemical profiling and asthma symptoms. The consistent results from the three centres indicate that indoor metabolites/chemicals could be a better indicator than the indoor microbiome for environmental and health assessments, providing new insights for asthma prediction, prevention and control.