Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Andrew E. Lincoln, ScD, MS¹, Richard Y. Hinton, MD, MPH², Jon L. Almquist, ATC³, Sean L. Lager, MD², and Randall Dick⁴. (1) Orthopedics & Sports Health Research, MedStar Research Institute, 6495 New Hampshire Avenue, Suite 201, Hyattsville, MD 20783, 301-560-2927, andrew.e.lincoln@medstar.net, (2) Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Union Memorial Hospital, 3333 North Calvert Street, #400, Baltimore, MD 21218, (3) Athletic Training Program, Fairfax County Public Schools, 10700 Page Ave, Fairfax, VA 22030, (4) NCAA, P.O. Box 6222, Indianapolis, IN 46206-6222

Background: Risks and mechanisms of head, face, and eye (HFE) injury in high school and college lacrosse are not well documented. Objective: To identify 1) primary mechanisms of HFE injury in lacrosse; 2) differences in injury risk between the men's and women's game; 3) differences in injury risk between high school and collegiate levels. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiological study Methods: For four seasons, we gathered data on 507,000 high school and 818,958 college athletic exposures using sport-specific injury surveillance systems. The most common scenarios for HFE injuries were identified. Results: High school girls experienced a significantly higher rate (0.54 per 1000 AE) of HFE injuries (incident rate ratio (IRR) = 1.42, 95% CI: 1.09 – 1.86) than boys (0.38 per 1000 AE); college women (0.77 per 1000 AE) sustained a higher rate of injuries (IRR = 1.76, 95% CI: 1.42 – 2.19) than men (0.44 per 1000 AE). Concussions constituted a higher percentage of injuries among boys (73%) and men (85%) than girls (40%) and women (41%). Men sustained few facial injuries, whereas a significant proportion of women's injuries involved the face and orbital area. Conclusions: Though permitting only incidental contact, the women's game had higher rates of HFE injuries at both high school and collegiate levels. Concussion was the most common injury. For men, the primary injury mechanism was player-to-player contact; women's injuries primarily resulted from stick or ball contact. High school injury rates were lower than college rates, but the nature of injuries, body parts affected, and mechanisms were similar.

Learning Objectives:

To document
• primary mechanisms of head, face, and eye injury in lacrosse;
• differences in injury risk between the men’s and women’s game; and
• differences in injury risk between high school and collegiate levels.

Keywords: Injury Risk, Youth

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered