Steketee Abby M, Harden Samantha M
Virginia Tech, Dept. of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise, USA.
Public Health Pract (Oxf). 2024 Aug 24;8:100546. doi: 10.1016/j.puhip.2024.100546. eCollection 2024 Dec.
The purpose of this commentary is to describe combinatory play as a practice for elevating creativity and well-being among public health professionals. Albert Einstein introduced combinatory play in a letter to a colleague, and, in this commentary, we define it as engagement in an intrinsically enjoyable, cognitively stimulating artistic activity that is distinct from one's job tasks and conducive to connecting ideas toward insight and creative problem-solving. Combinatory play aligns with empirical and experiential evidence demonstrating connections between art and science. We present combinatory play in the context of research on creativity and well-being, including the growing issue of work-related stress among public health professionals. To provide an example of combinatory play, we recount how Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" inspired email blackout periods and an intervention for health researchers. Finally, we outline concrete strategies for public health professionals to integrate combinatory play into their lives. Overall, combinatory play is a promising practice for catalyzing novel solutions to public health issues while fueling the well-being of public health professionals themselves.
本评论的目的是将组合式游戏描述为一种提升公共卫生专业人员创造力和幸福感的实践方式。阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦在给一位同事的信中引入了组合式游戏，在本评论中，我们将其定义为参与一种本质上令人愉悦、具有认知启发性的艺术活动，这种活动不同于个人的工作任务，有助于将各种想法联系起来，从而获得洞察力并创造性地解决问题。组合式游戏与证明艺术与科学之间联系的实证和经验证据相一致。我们在创造力和幸福感的研究背景下介绍组合式游戏，包括公共卫生专业人员中日益严重的工作相关压力问题。为了提供一个组合式游戏的例子，我们讲述了罗伯特·弗罗斯特的诗歌《修墙》如何激发了电子邮件停用期以及针对健康研究人员的一项干预措施。最后，我们概述了公共卫生专业人员将组合式游戏融入其生活的具体策略。总体而言，组合式游戏是一种很有前景的实践方式，既能催生解决公共卫生问题的新方法，又能提升公共卫生专业人员自身的幸福感。
