YSM researchers receive grant to help curb youth smoking

(l-r): Lynn Fiellin directs the Center for Health & Learning Games, Tyra Pendergrass is associate director, and Kimberly Hieftje is deputy director. A CVS Health Foundation gift will expand use of their method to reduce adolescent smoking. (Photo by Harold Shapiro ) Video games that have shown effectiveness in trials will have their use expanded through funding from the CVS Health Foundation Lynn E. Fiellin, M.D., associate professor of medicine and in the Yale Child Study Center, has spent much of her recent career determining how best to use video games to empower adolescents to avoid risky behaviors that affect life outcomes. Fiellin's work has just received a substantial boost in the form of a $1.4 million gift from the CVS Health Foundation. The three-year gift is a part of "Be The First," a $50 million commitment by CVS Health to help deliver the first tobacco-free generation. This gift aims to further smoking prevention by helping to bring smokeSCREEN , a game Fiellin's group has developed, to a broader audience across the United States. The game, currently played on an iPad, conveys anti-tobacco messaging via character-based graphic novel-like images and multiple-choice questions.