Raising our Collective Health

Yikes.  I haven't blogged in weeks.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I had written a long post that got eaten by the computer, and I haven't been the same since.  But news of HealthRaising, a current Health Horizons project, deserves to be shared. 

"'Virtual' self can help dieting, exercise"

So read the subtitle of a story in today's Palo Alto Weekly. Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab researchers have been studying how people change their real-world behavior by watching virtual representations of themselves (known as avatars). The researchers have found evidence that what one's avatar does in a virtual-reality game or world (like Second Life) can have real health implications in everyday life. For example, watching your virtual self get fat on-screen will help you decide to skip the chocolate bar at snack time.

Bye bye, bad-for-you foods (at least in California)

I've been meaning to post something about California becoming the first state to ban the use of trans fats--which are known to increase the risk of heart disease--by restaurants and other food facilities, but haven't gotten around to it yet. My aplogies doe the delay.  (By the way, New York City has already done adopted a similar ban, as have Philadelphia, Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County, Md.)

Putting in context another newly-launched health-related social networking site

Trusera--a website that allows people to share their real-world health experiences--launched last month. Its tag is "Come experience the Power of Been There." When I first came across the announcement on the bbgm blog, I wondered what would set Tujera apart from similar sites, like Daily Strength or iMedix, which I blogged about here.

Four Ps represent the future of medicine

Seattle-based Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) claims a trademark in the term "P4 Medicine," which represents its take on the future of health care: Predictive, Preventive, Personalized, and Participatory. It emphasizes improved personal measurements and personalized treatments as the key to improving health care.

As the ISB website explains, "The goal of systems biology is to fundamentally transform the practice of medicine."  How will medicine change?  Let's go back to the four Ps:

Get organized, get $$

OrganizedWisdom is a human-powered search engine that launched in 2006. A couple of weeks ago, it raised $2.3 million in a Series A round led by ETF Venture Fund, Esther Dyson, and a number of other investors. As Tech Crunch puts it, OrganizedWisdom is a "member of the very-crowded health advice space, and sees competition from the likes of WebMD and HealthLine."

Tracking Mobile Swarms to Change the Way We See Cities

Last fall, I reported on Alberto Barabasi's research using mobile phones to track large-scale human mobility patterns after seeing him give a paper on the topic in Budapest. That paper has now been published in Nature, and there is a public summary in Nature News.