BACKGROUND While there is widespread recognition of global health failures when it comes to infectious disease outbreaks, there is little discussion on how policy-makers and global health organizations can learn to better prepare and respond. Serious games provide an underutilized tool to promote learning and innovation around global health crises. In order to explore the potential of Serious Games as a policy learning tool, Global Affairs Canada, in collaboration with the Department of National Defense and academic partners, developed and implemented a matrix game aimed at prompting critical reflection and gender-based analysis on infectious disease outbreak preparedness and response. This commentary, written by the core development team, reflects on the process and outcomes of the gaming exercise, which we believe will be of interest to others hoping to promote innovative thinking and learning around global health policy and crisis response, as well as the application of serious games more broadly. MAIN BODY Participants reported, through discussions and a post-game survey, that they felt the game was reflective of real-world decision-making and priority-setting challenges during a crisis. They reflected on the challenges that emerge around global health co-operation and outbreak preparedness, particularly noting the importance of learning to work with private actors. While participants only sporadically applied gender-based analysis or considered the social determinants of health during the game, post-game discussions led to reflection on the ways in which equity concerns are put aside during a crisis scenario and on why this happens, offering critical learning opportunities. CONCLUSION Matrix games provide opportunities for policy-makers and health professionals to experience the challenges of global health co-operation, test ideas and explore how biases, such as those around gender, influence policy-making and implementation. Due to their flexibility, adaptability and accessibility, serious games offer a potentially powerful learning tool for global health policy-makers and practitioners.

中文翻译：

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应对严重危机的严肃游戏：传染病爆发矩阵游戏的反思。

背景技术虽然在传染病暴发方面人们普遍认识到全球卫生失灵，但很少有关于决策者和全球卫生组织如何学会更好地准备和应对的讨论。严肃的游戏提供了一种利用不足的工具来促进围绕全球健康危机的学习和创新。为了探索严肃游戏作为政策学习工具的潜力，加拿大全球事务部与国防部和学术伙伴合作开发并实施了一个矩阵游戏，旨在促进对传染病的批判性反思和基于性别的分析爆发的准备和响应。此评论由核心开发团队撰写，反映了游戏过程的过程和结果，我们相信其他希望在全球卫生政策和危机应对以及更广泛地应用严肃游戏方面寻求创新思维和学习的人也会对此感兴趣。主要参与者参与者通过讨论和赛后调查报告称，他们认为游戏反映了危机期间的现实世界决策和优先级设定挑战。他们反思了围绕全球卫生合作和疫情爆发而出现的挑战，特别是指出了学习与私人行为者合作的重要性。尽管参与者在游戏过程中只是偶尔进行基于性别的分析或考虑健康的社会决定因素，但游戏后的讨论引发了人们对危机情景中公平问题的抛弃方式以及发生这种情况的原因的思考，提供重要的学习机会。结论矩阵游戏为决策者和卫生专业人员提供了机会，以体验全球卫生合作所面临的挑战，检验思想并探索偏见（例如围绕性别的偏见）如何影响决策和实施。严肃的游戏由于具有灵活性，适应性和可访问性，因此它们为全球卫生政策制定者和从业者提供了潜在强大的学习工具。