HEALTH-E GAMBLING SUMMIT

by Marlene Warner, Executive Director, Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling

What do your cell phone; teenagers and health have to do with one another? Apparently, a great deal more than ever before…

In November, Jim Wuelfing, our Prevention Director, Marty Toomey, a K-12 prevention contingent employee, and I made a 24-hour trip to Las Vegas.  We had been asked to discuss our role in developing and our impressions of the new Health-E Gambling Tool being created between by the Division on Addictions at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School (HMS/DOA) in collaboration with entities such as us (the Mass. Council on Compulsive Gambling), the Nevada Council and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) at the Health-E Gambling Summit.

Facilitated by UNLV, and paid for by The Lincy Institute, this day-long Summit served two purposes:

1. To introduce the topic of gambling disorders and the ways technology is impacting the topic, and

 2. To determine our weaknesses, strengths and biases when technology, health-studies and interventions are further explored.

The Health-E Gambling Tool is an innovative tool, modeled off others in substance abuse that will allow young people to be prompted by their smart phone to think about their gambling and whether their current behaviors warrant further personal investigation and change.  In addition, it takes you to a website that you can personalize—similar to facebook—that has resources and connections that fit your needs. 

The Mass. Council is encouraged by the response thus far.  This past spring focus groups were held at Medford and North Brookfield High Schools in Massachusetts. Students there helped to design and mold the language, feel and follow-up of this tool and the information it is trying to convey.  And most importantly, they feel like this is a tool that they will use and promote among their friends.

We feel that the Health-E Gambling Summit and tool are going to move this field a step closer to the revolution needed to end the stigma associated with gambling disorders and increase the knowledge and resources devoted to it. 

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