Citation

Badgeley MA, McIlvain NM, Yard E, Fields S, Comstock RD. J. Phys. Act. Health 2013; 10(2): 160-169.

Affiliation

Center for Injury Research and Policy, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Human Kinetics Publishers)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

22821941

Abstract

BACKGROUND: With more than 1.1 million high school athletes playing annually during the 2005/06-2009/10 academic years, American football is the most popular boys' sport in the United States. METHODS: Using an internet-based data collection tool, RIOTM, certified athletic trainers (ATs) from 100 nationally representative US high schools reported athletic exposure and football injury data during the 2005/06-2009/10 academic years. RESULTS: Participating ATs reported 10,100 football injuries corresponding to an estimated 2,739,187 football-related injuries nationally. The injury rate was 4.08 per 1,000 athlete-exposures (AEs) overall. Offensive lineman collectively (center, offensive guard, offensive tackle) sustained 18.3% of all injuries. Running backs (16.3%) sustained more injuries than any other position followed by linebackers (14.9%) and wide receivers (11.9%). The leading mechanism of injury was player-player contact (64.0%), followed by player-surface contact (13.4%). More specifically, the most common activities during which injury occurred most commonly when players were being tackled (24.4%) and tackling (21.8%). CONCLUSIONS: Patterns of football injuries vary by position. Identifying such differences is important to drive development of evidence-based, targeted injury prevention efforts.

Language: en