Mobile Gaming App Cost Taxpayers $2.2 Million and Encouraged HIV+ Youth to Take Meds

Brown University has a $4.7 billion endowment, but it still collected $756.8 million in grants since 2017, including $2.2 million to create a mobile gaming app to encourage youth living with HIV to regularly get treatment.

Brown collected the money from the National Institute of Mental Health since 2018 for BattleViro, a mobile gaming app that seeks to improve adherence to antiretroviral treatment for HIV.

The study notes that antiretroviral treatment leads to decreased morbidity and the number of hospitalizations. But adolescents and young adults have low rates of adherence to the medications and low rates of retention in care as compared to older adults.

“Novel and engaging digital approaches are needed to help adolescents and young adults living with HIV be adherent to treatment,” according to the abstract.

Researchers developed the iPhone game to encourage them to adhere to treatment more regularly, completing the study with the participation of 20 young adults in a Rhode Island HIV clinic.

They said it was “a significant step in working toward the development and testing of an iPhone gaming app intervention to promote adherence to antiretroviral treatment.”

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.