The Challenge: How can Schell Games and Yale University's play2PREVENT (p2P) Lab harness the power of “play” to encourage HIV testing, counseling, and education for teens in an accessible way?

The Solution: With funding awarded to Schell Games and the Yale p2P Lab from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), we worked with teens to create a web-based game that aims to provide the information, motivation, and skills needed to encourage adolescents to seek out HIV testing and counseling (HTC) from their school-based health center in order to help minimize risk and maintain an uninfected status.

The Results: PlayTEST! is a digital intervention about HIV testing and counseling, designed to help improve players' knowledge and decision-making abilities surrounding HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.

With the findings from our Phase I pilot study in 2016, Schell Games and Yale's p2P Lab received additional funding to conduct a large-scale randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of PlayTEST! The p2P Lab completed data collection for this trial, following 296 adolescents in school-based health centers in Connecticut for six months after gameplay. Data analysis is currently underway and results on the game’s efficacy in improving the participants’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors around HIV testing and counseling will be reported.

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