FALL SPORTS INJURIES: INCIDENCE

Fractures, joint aging, injury prevention and treatment, sports-related injuries, back pain, proper conditioning and training…these are just a few of the topics under the care of orthopedic surgeons. I will be writing a regular column for the Chronicle on Orthopedic Health Issues. In my practice, I am fortunate to have partners who are experts in their area of subspecialty, so I will enlist their help in answering your information needs. This column will also feature a section entitled “Ask the Orthopedist.” If you have questions about any orthopedic topic, you can email them to the Chronicle (address to be specified). I will pick a couple of the pertinent ones and answer them.

In our office, we are in the middle of the fall sports injury season. When we’re out on the sidelines or cheering on our local teams, many people ask, “Is my child likely to be injured doing this sport?” There are many myths that one sport may be more dangerous than another. I hope to clarify some of these with data that I have gathered from various publications.

Football is one of the most popular sports in the United States in the fall. Let’s focus on the incidence of high school football injuries. Each year, there are 1.3 million U.S. high school football athletes. Of these, 35% of football players sustain at least one “time-loss injury” per season. A time loss injury is defined as one that caused the athlete to miss all of a practice or a game and is treated by a physician or an athletic trainer. Most football injuries (70%-80%) cause the athlete to miss less than 5-7 days. Approximately 4%-8% of the injuries will cause more than 3 weeks time loss. More than 60% of the injuries occur in practice. Games are a higher risk than practice. This is most probably due to the increased intensity.

So how does the incidence of football injuries compare to other sports? The table below shows the injury rates of various sports per 100 athletes per season. It’s surprising to see that Girls Cross Country has the highest injury rate of all high school sports. National Athletic Trainers Association data shows that girl’s soccer and softball have higher injury rates than boy’s soccer and baseball. Girls and Boys basketball have equal injury rates overall.

High School Athlete Injury Rates
• Girls Xcounry 61.4
• Football 58.8
• Wrestling 49.7
• Girls soccer 43.7
• Girls gymnastics 38.9
• Boys Xcountry 38.7
• Boys Soccer 36.4
• Girls Basketball 34.5