smokeSCREEN game

A game to inform teens about tobacco smoking, e-cigarettes and vaping prevention

smokeSCREEN addresses the range of challenges that teens face, with a dedicated focus on youth decision-making about cigarettes, electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), other tobacco products, and vaping and includes strategies for both smoking prevention and cessation. smokeSCREEN was developed as part of a collaboration between the play2PREVENT Lab at the Yale Center for Health & Learning Games, 1st Playable Productions, DigitalMill, and Schell Games, with generous support from the CVS Health Foundation as part of their Be the First Tobacco-Free Generation and the Yale and USC Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS).

Results from our published pilot study suggest that brief exposure to smokeSCREEN may have a promising effect on preventing risk for early adolescent tobacco product use. The videogame changed knowledge of e-cigarettes and other tobacco products, risk perceptions of cigarettes and e-cigarettes, and beliefs about e-cigarettes and other tobacco products. More recently, in our partnership with CVS, we engaged over 500 teens who played smokeSCREEN in their classrooms in schools around the country over several weeks and they had demonstrated improvements in their beliefs and knowledge around tobacco product use after playing the game.