Mobile-Friendly Video Game Helps Teens Navigate Decisions Around Smoking and Vaping

ST. JOHNSBURY, VT (August 27, 2020) – Individuals who are homeschooling and looking for vaping education for your youth ages 10 – 16 during the COVID-19 pandemic can now download smokeSCREEN, a free tobacco-use prevention videogame that addresses the challenges teens face around smoking and vaping with a focus on decision-making.

The smokeSCREEN Game is a collaboration between the NIH/FDA-funded Yale and USC Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS) play2PREVENT Lab and 1st Playable Productions, Schell Games. It started out as PlayForward: smokeSCREEN, and the goal to collect data on perceptions and attitudes on tobacco products – including e-cigarettes – has been expanded.

“With the school landscape changing every day, we have to be adaptable and smokeSCREEN provides that flexibility of learning, whether it be in the home or in the classroom,” NVRH Prevention Specialist Tennyson Marceau said.

Teens face a variety of challenges when it comes to tobacco products. Whether they’re confronting electronic cigarettes, conventional cigarettes or flavored tobacco, smokeSCREEN focuses on decision-making and strategies for both prevention and cessation.

Results from a published pilot study suggested that “brief exposure to smokeSCREEN has a promising effect on preventing risk for adolescent smoking and vaping. The videogame changed risk perception, and beliefs about e-cigarettes and other tobacco products.”

The smokescreen game, which is geared towards ages 10 –16, is available to users with authorized logins through both of the App Stores. For more information, please visit Smokescreengame.org or call NVRH Prevention Services at 802-748-8400.