High School Football Has Highest Severe Injury Rate (2024)

Overall injury picture

Here's the big picture on high school sports injuries:

• Over 7 million students participate in high school athletics every years.

• Nearly four out of ten of all non-fatal, unintentional injuries among high school students that result in emergency room visits are sports-related.

• High school athletes suffer an estimated 2 million injuriesevery year, resulting in 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000hospitalizations.

  See Also

  The Toughest Position in Sports?

• Of these injuries, an estimated 446,715 (14.9%) aresevere enough to result in the loss of 21 or more days of sportsparticipation, with almost 6 in 10 (56.8%) resulting in medicaldisqualification for the remainder of the season.

Football still tops the danger list

Not surprisingly, and confirming the findings of previous studies, a new study finds that high school football players are at the greatest risk of severe injury (0.69 per 1,000 "athletic events"),¹accounting for fully 4 out of 10 (38.1%) of all severe injuries suffered in the nine sports studied.

Examining data from 100 nationally representative high schools oninjuiries during the 2005 to 2007 school years, researchers at theResearch Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital's Center forInjury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio also found:

• the most commonly injured parts of the body were the knee (25.8%), shoulder (14.2%) and hand/finger (10.3%);
• the most common diagnoses were fracture (38.2%), incomplete ligament sprain (14.3%), and complete ligament sprain (10.7%);
• 7 out of 10 (69.3%) of severe injuries were the result of player-to-player contact;
• 3 in 10 (29.8%) of severe injuries occurred to the player being tackled while 1 out of 5 (20.8%) were to player making the tackle.

The findings are reported in the September 2009 issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine.

"Finding ways to decrease the incidence and severity of sports-relatedinjuries is critical to keeping kids playing sports long-term andreaping the benefits that organized athletics provides, " said DawnComstock, PhD, a co-author of the study and assistant professor at theCenterfor Injury Research and Policy at The Research Institute at NationwideChildren's Hospital.

"Efforts to prevent or lessen the injury severity in footballandwrestling [the sport accounting for the second-most severe injuries in the study] are crucial," said the study authors, "because these sportsaccounted for a disproportionately large proportion of severeinjuries."

1. An "athletic exposure" is defined as a high school athlete participating in one practice or game.

Source:Am. J. Sports Med 37, no. 9 (2009);1798-1805.