Adolescents engaging in multiple high risk behaviors have greater lifestyle-related cancer risks. Computer games appear to be an ideal vehicle for engaging high risk adolescents in skill-based cancer risk-reduction, given their unique capability to simultaneously entertain and teach, their tremendous popularity and reach, and the limited success of traditional health education approaches. SIMTEEN is an entertainment-based, interactive, digital board game with lifestyle simulations and fast-paced quiz games, aimed at improving adolescents' lifestyle decisions related to smoking, nutrition, exercise, and alcohol use. Within an entertainment context, SIMTEEN will actively engage players in achieving risk-reduction objectives by providing opportunities to see and think about behavioral options, experience the possible immediate and long-term consequences through simulations, safely practice negotiating with peers to make important decisions, and learn from mistakes. This study will determine the feasibility of the SIMTEEN concept through storyboard testing and comparative games feature analysis research, and focus groups conducted with panels of target adolescents, parents and teachers, and experts. We believe SIMTEEN has strong potential for successful broad-scale distribution through schools, community, and retail channels. SIMTEEN should ultimately prove an effective model for utilizing entertainment to facilitate cancer risk-reduction behavior among many underserved populations.
