News
Current Priorities of the U.S. Surgeon General
Protecting Youth Mental Health
Play2Prevent is a repository for evidence-based video game interventions and educational materials geared toward risk prevention, health and wellness promotion, and social intelligence in children, teens and young adults. More >
The EdTech Awards 2022
A very big congratulations to all The EdTech Awards 2022 finalists and winners!
As events unfold on the world stage that seem to inch ever closer to a precipice unknown, we are reminded that the leaders and innovators of education technology have always worked on the edge. That from their perch on the cutting edge, they don’t look down, but rather look ahead. To where generations to come will work, play, and learn. To where education technology’s true legacy resides. It’s why they focus laser-like on the future, seeking to shape it well. They are moved not by bits, bytes, code, connections, hardware or software. Nor by the robots, the algorithms, the apps, or platforms. It’s not about the pedagogy or adaptive, personalized or customized learning; blended, hybrid or remote—these things are not what move them. More >
Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Uche Aneni, MBBS, MHS: Promoting Prevention & Increasing Access through Digital Interventions
As a child and teenager in Ibadan, Nigeria, Uche Aneni, MBBS, MHS, thought her mother, a clinical psychologist, “got into her head too much.” But that frequent unsolicited analysis—along with her father’s career as a public health and community medicine physician and her older sister’s struggle with a neurodevelopmental disorder—ultimately inspired Aneni to become a child psychiatrist. More >
TIME
What Euphoria Gets Right—and Wrong—About Teen Drug Use and Addiction
The show has sparked controversy over how it portrays teen drug use. In January, D.A.R.E.—the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program—criticized the show for “glorify[ing]” high school drug use and making it seem “common and widespread in today’s world.” But drug use is not uncommon among high school students today. In the U.S., about 1.6 million kids ages 12 to 17—6.3% of the adolescent population—had substance use disorder in 2020, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). “That’s a huge problem,” says Dr. Lynn Fiellin, professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and Child Study Center, who is trained in addiction medicine and behavioral health (and who is a fan of the show). The problem seems to be growing, too; in 2020, millions more kids tried drugs for the first time. “Euphoria depicts exactly what is going on,” she says. More >
NBC Connecticut
Meals4Healers Helps Physician Trainees Impacted by COVID-19 – NBC Connecticut
The ongoing strain the pandemic has had a significant impact on health care workers and it’s been made more difficult with many hospital employees testing positive for COVID over the last few weeks. A program called Meals4Healers is helping. Dr. Claudi-Santi Fernandes, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, spoke with NBC about the program. More >
The Morning Call
Your View: How we can cut opioid deaths among young people
In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is another public health emergency that recently hit peak levels in the United States.
The opioid epidemic has escalated at a startling rate. Recent data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that reported drug overdose deaths reached a record high of 94,134 in the period from January 2020 to January 2021. That’s a 30% increase over the same 12 months from 2019 to 2020.
LX
This Point-and-Click Game Helps Reduce the Stigma of Addiction
Dr. Lynn Fiellin of Yale Medical School and LX News host Tabitha Lipkin talk about reducing the stigma of addiction using a videogame. Fiellin helped develop PlaySmart, a point-and-click game catered to older teens that stimulates life choices around opioid use. More >
Serious Play Conference
PlayTest! wins a Silver Award at this year’s International Serious Play Conference
PlayTest! By Tyra Pendergrass Boomer, in association with Schell Games & play2PREVENT Lab at The Yale Center for Health and Learning Games, is a role-playing game aimed at high school students. The decision-making game is meant to advocate for personal health in teenagers and help increase the use of school-based health centers for HIV testing and sexual health counseling. More >
Yale School of Medicine
Fernandes Named 2021 YCCI Scholar
The Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI) has named its 2021 Scholars, junior researchers who will receive added support as they build their young careers. The categories of YCCI Scholars are junior faculty, predoctoral awardees, and postdoctoral trainnees. More >
The Washington Post
A Yale doctor is using a video game to fight the opioid crisis
As drug-related deaths have spiked across the United States in recent years, doctors seeking to curb that surge are getting an unlikely new tool: a video game. The game, titled “PlaySmart,” was developed by Lynn Fiellin and funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. A professor at the Yale School of Medicine and Yale Child Study Center, as well as the founder and director of the play2PREVENT video game development lab, Fiellin hopes that by using “PlaySmart,” she and her team will be able to collect more data related to adolescent opioid misuse and provide aid to both kids who play the game and the adults who work those youths. More >