Citation

Yang J, Comstock RD, Yi H, Harvey HH, Xun P. Am. J. Public Health 2017; 107(12): 1916-1922.

Affiliation

Jingzhen Yang is with the Center for Injury Research and Policy, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, and Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus. R. Dawn Comstock is with the Department of Epidemiology, The Colorado School of Public Health, and the Department of Pediatrics, Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz, Aurora. Honggang Yi is with the Center for Injury Research and Policy, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, and the Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. Hosea H. Harvey is with the Beasley School of Law, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. Pengcheng Xun is with the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health-Bloomington, Indiana University, Bloomington.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, American Public Health Association)

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2017.304056

PMID

29048967

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To examine the trends of new and recurrent sports-related concussions in high-school athletes before and after youth sports traumatic brain injury laws.

METHODS: We used an interrupted time-series design and analyzed the concussion data (2005-2016) from High School Reporting Injury Online. We examined the trends of new or recurrent concussion rates among US representative high-school athletes participating in 9 sports across prelaw, immediate-postlaw, and postlaw periods by using general linear models. We defined 1 athlete exposure as attending 1 competition or practice.

RESULTS: We included a total of 8043 reported concussions (88.7% new, 11.3% recurrent). The average annual concussion rate was 39.8 per 100 000 athlete exposures. We observed significantly increased trends of reported new and recurrent concussions from the prelaw, through immediate-postlaw, into the postlaw period. However, the recurrent concussion rate showed a significant decline 2.6 years after the laws went into effect. Football exhibited different trends compared with other boys' sports and girls' sports.

CONCLUSIONS: Observed trends of increased concussion rates are likely attributable to increased identification and reporting. Additional research is needed to evaluate intended long-term impact of traumatic brain injury laws. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 19, 2017: e1-e7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2017.304056).

Language: en