High school students place themselves in harm’s way when they participate in various sporting events. But perhaps no risk is greater than the danger posed by a potential concussion.
A new study in The American Journal of Sports Medicine details the concussion danger that exists among high school student athletes. The researchers who compiled their information used an online collection tool that enabled various trainers from across the country to report injury data across all high school sports. The data reported concerns the years 2008 through 2010.
A total of 7,780,064 athlete exposures were reported to researchers. Among those exposures, a total of 1,936 concussions took place, adding up to 2.5 concussions for every 10,000 times a student has an exposure. Football led the list of sports most likely to lead its participants to experience a concussion, with 6.4 of these injuries for every 10,000 athlete exposures. Football was the cause of 47.1% of all concussions reported. Girls’ soccer came in second by a wide margin, making up 8.2% of reported concussions.
Boys’ ice hockey was also proven dangerous, with both a high concussion rate and the highest proportion of concussions when compared with other injuries. Practice across the different sports being considered was proven not to be as dangerous as competition.