The Challenge: How can Yale's play2Prevent lab focus on the use of “play,” in the form of video game play, for the purposes of health promotion, risk reduction, social good, and educational interventions?

The Solution: With funding from the NICHD, Yale’s p2P lab partnered up with Schell Games to create a game that would help improve the decision-making abilities of players. It focused on issues involving HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.

The Results: PlayForward: Elm City Stories has been in clinical trials and longitudinal studies since 2013. Since the game was released, Schell Games has been working on additional updates for the center.

In September 2017, study results were published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research that suggested that teenagers who played PlayForward: Elm City Stories had improved attitudes towards sexual health and an increase of sexual health knowledge than the control group of teens who didn't play.

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