Epidemiology of Football-Related Injuries Presenting to Emergency Departments in the US, 2006-2009

Document Type

Poster

Abstract

Context: Annually, 4.1 million youth and adolescent athletes participate in organized football activities in the U.S. Although organized football participation is associated with relatively high injury rates, little is known about all football-related injuries (eg, organized, playground, pickup) that require an emergency department (ED) visit. Our objective was to describe injury rates and patterns for football-related injuries presenting to EDs from 2006-2019. Methods: In October 2020, deidentified patient cases were abstracted from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), which provides nationally representative data from a probability sample of 100 EDs in the U.S. We used product codes and physician narratives to identify football-related injuries and grouped cases as elementary (5-9 years), middle (10-14 years) and high (15-19 years) school-aged patients. Each case was associated with a weight to provide national estimates. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize counts, percentages, and rates. For incidence rate (IR) calculations, we abstracted population estimates by age group from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2006-2019. Incidence rates were calculated as the number of cases per 10,000 people. Results: During the study period, 146,860 patients reported to NEISS EDs with football-related injuries, with a population-weighted national estimate of 4,619,660. Middle school-aged patients accounted for 52.4% (n=76,920) of injuries followed by high (36.6%, n=53,711) and elementary (11.1%, n=16,229) school-aged patients. Frequently injured body parts were the head (15.5%, n=22,835), finger (12.8%, n=18,833), and knee (9.1%, n=13,296). The most common injury types were sprain/strain (26.3%, n=38,660), fracture (23.8%, n=34,962) and contusions/abrasions (15.9%, n=23,403). The five most frequently reported diagnoses were concussion (8.0%, n=11,819), ankle sprain/strain (6.3%, n=9,267), head injury (6.1%, n=9,024), finger fracture (5.7%, n=8,403), and knee sprain/strain (4.6%, n=6,813). Almost all patients were treated and released (96.0%, n=140,938) but 2.6% (n=3,763) were admitted to the hospital. Between 2006-2019, IR decreased by 34.6%, with the highest IR reported for 2010 (IR=3.9) and 2011 (IR=3.9) and the lowest IR reported for 2018 (IR=2.5) and 2019 (IR=2.6). Incidence rates were 4.7 and 1.5 times higher in the middle school-aged group (IR=5.2) than elementary (IR=1.1) and high (IR=3.5) school-aged groups, respectively. Conclusion: Approximately 4.6 million football-related injuries required an ED visit between 2006-2019. However, the number of football-related ED visits and IRs have generally decreased over time, which may be attributed to a decline in overall football participation or implementation of rule changes. Concussions and head injuries are common reasons for a visit to the ED, and almost all patients were treated and released. Future studies should investigate the role that an athletic trainer can play in further reducing the number of ED visits, particularly patient cases that are generally treated and released.

Publication Date

Spring 2021

Comments

Poster presented at ATSU-ASHS DAT Spring - 2021. This is a Kubify based presentation hosted at https://api.ltb.io/show/BFYHY It includes a video presentation, references, a PowerPoint presentation, and summary poster.

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