Grant: Catalyst Grant: Health Impacts of Gambling and Gaming

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health's Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey is the longest ongoing repeated cross-sectional survey of mental health and addictions among elementary and secondary school students in Canada. The survey has been collecting data on gambling, video gaming and technology use for several years. The proposed study is a secondary analysis of data on video gaming and gambling collected in 2017, 2019 (prior to the pandemic), 2021, and in 2023. The 2023 data will become available in early 2024. From 2019 to 2021, video gaming and online gambling increased significantly during to the pandemic. Another topic of interest is the increase in advertisements for online and sports gambling in the past year and whether this has impacted the rate of youth gambling online. A final topic of interest is in the convergence of gambling and video gaming technologies that has occurred over the past few years; video games have incorporated elements of gambling (e.g., loot boxes) and gambling games have incorporated elements of video games (e.g., skill and adventure). For this project we will examine trends from 2017 to 2023 to determine if the increase in video gaming, and online gambling has continued into 2023, or if these behaviors have returned to their pre-pandemic levels. In addition, we will examine the data in terms of gender, age, risk factors, protective factors, co-morbidity, physical activity and the overlap between video gaming and gambling behavior. A key component of our proposed study will be the formation of a knowledge user advisory group to maximize the applicability and impact of our research. The use of iKT will enable the meaningful engagement of knowledge users throughout the project, and ensure the study findings are relevant and useful, and integrated into programs and policies aimed at addressing gaming and gambling issues among youth.