JANUARY 26, 2024
Tyra Pendergrass Boomer, MEM
Deputy Director, play2PREVENT Lab
Research Project Director, Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Lynn E. Fiellin, MD
Professor, Department of Biomedical Data Science and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
About the Presentation: This presentation will highlight the work of the play2PREVENT Lab (an academic games research program) and the use of serious videogame interventions to impact health outcomes in adolescents. This presentation will also introduce future opportunities and topics where serious videogame interventions can be utilized to impact target populations. The audience will be asked to explore the following 3 questions at the end of the presentation:
- What other topic areas are CTBH investigators interested in with regards to developing a new digital health game?
- What are the potential approaches to examining the abundant data produced through the game software (“in-game data”)?
- What opportunities are there to translate the work of the play2PREVENT Lab to more rural settings
About the Presenters:
Ms. Tyra Pendergrass Boomer brings diverse educational and unique work experiences to the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health. Her passion lies at the intersection of the environment and human health. She received her Bachelors of Science in Biology from Howard University and her Masters of Environmental Management from Yale University. Tyra has over 15 years of experience with building community partnerships with diverse stakeholders and designing and overseeing large-randomized controlled trials to evaluate digital interventions. She is a former CT Health Leaders Fellow and Yale Advance Science Health Research Fellow.
Dr. Lynn Fiellin is a Professor of Biomedical Data Science and the Center for Technology & Behavioral Health at Dartmouth College, Professor Adjunct at Yale, and the Founding Director of the play2PREVENT (p2P) Lab where she and her team focus on developing and evaluating digital health games. These games, as “serious videogames” impact the health and well-being of adolescents, including opioid misuse, smoking/vaping, mental health, and sexual health. Most recently, she founded a new company, Playbl, that focuses on the broad-scale marketing and distribution of the 5 videogames developed and evaluated by the Lab.