Metaverse can improve public health

The metaverse is a technological revolution in the field of virtual reality, with potential benefits to public health research. A new article proposes several new ways in which the metaverse can help us design, test, and experience health-promoting environments to minimize the risk of non-communicable diseases.

The "metaverse" has captured the public imagination as a world of limitless possibilities that can influence all aspects of life. Discussions about the utility of completely immersible virtual environments were initially limited to a small number of tech and Sci-Fi circles until the rebranding of Facebook as "Meta" in 2021. The concept of the metaverse has gained a lot of attention since then, and researchers are now starting to explore ways in which virtual environments can be used to improve scientific and health research.

What are the key opportunities and uncertainties in the metaverse that can help us better manage non-communicable diseases? This is the subject of a paper recently published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, authored by Associate Professor Javad Koohsari from the School of Knowledge Science at Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), who is also an adjunct researcher at the Faculty of Sport Sciences at Waseda University, along with Professor Yukari Nagai from JAIST; Professor Tomoki Nakaya from Tohoku University; Professor Akitomo Yasunaga from Bunka Gakuen University; Associate Professor Gavin R. McCormack from University of Calgary; Associate Professor Daniel Fuller from University of Saskatchewan; and Professor Koichiro Oka from Waseda University. The team lists three ways in which the metaverse might potentially be used for large-scale health interventions targeting non-communicable diseases.

Non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease, strokes, chronic respiratory disease, cancers, and mental illness are greatly influenced by the "built environment," i.e., the human-made surroundings we constantly interact with. Built environments can affect health directly through acute effects like pollution or indirectly, by influencing physical activity, sedentary behaviour, diet and sleep. Therefore, health interventions that modify built environments can be used to reduce the health burden of non-communicable diseases.

This is where the metaverse can be of assistance. Experiments conducted in virtual settings within the metaverse can be used to investigate the effectiveness of large-scale interventions before they are implemented, saving time and money. "Within a metaverse, study participants could be randomised to experience different built environment exposures such as high and low density, high and low walkability, or different levels of nature or urban environments,"explains Prof. Koohsari, the lead author of the paper, who is among the top 2% of most influential researchers worldwide across all scientific disciplines in 2021. He further adds, "This article will be of particular interest to experts in public health, urban design, epidemiology, medicine, and environmental sciences, especially those considering using the metaverse for research and intervention purposes."

Science Daily