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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
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Online Program

317105
Sports Injuries Among High School Athletes in West Central Florida for Academic Year 2014-2015


Wednesday, November 4, 2015 : 10:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

Karen Liller, PhD, College of Public Health, Department of Community and Family Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
Barbara Morris, DHSc, Department of Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
Siew Wong, MA, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
Audio (mp3) recording Recorded Presentation (mp4)
Purpose:  The purpose of this research is to report the 2014-2015 results of the University of South Florida (USF) Sports Medicine and Athletic Related Trauma (USF-SMART) Institute high school athletes’ sports injury data.

Methods:  The SMART program hires certified athletic trainers (ATCS) to collect data on high school athletes’ sports injuries in schools in west-central Florida.  Utilizing the Reporting Information Online (RIO) Surveillance System, data were collected by ATCS from 18 large public and private high schools and SAS Version 9.3 was used for the data analysis.  Data analysis included descriptive statistics and calculation of injury rates per 1000 athletic exposures.

Results:  The leading rate of injury per 1000 athlete-exposures for practices was for men’s cheerleading at 2.86, followed by football at 2.79, and women’s volleyball at 1.05.  For competitions, the injury rate per 1000 athlete-exposures was greatest for football at 12.4, followed by men’s soccer at 3.32 and women’s soccer at 2.90.  Four-hundred seventy-seven injuries were reported by the ATCs of which the majority of injuries were to males (81.3%) with injuries largely to the head/face, ankles, and knees.  The leading type of injury across sports was ligament sprain (28.8%), followed by concussion (25.8%), and muscle strain (9.2%).

Conclusions:  The results of this research confirm the important role of football, soccer, volleyball, and cheerleading in producing sports injuries among high school athletes.  The final year of data will be available in May 2015, and will be used to develop targeted interventions to reduce sports injuries in these athletes.

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs

Learning Objectives:
Discuss the leading sports for injuries among the high school athletes in the SMART study schools for 2014-2015. Describe the leading injury mechanisms and activities for each sport in the SMART study schools. Identify effective interventions for injured high school athletes in the SMART study schools.

Keyword(s): Adolescents, Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been a child and adolescent injury prevention researcher for over 20 years. I have received numerous grants and awards and have published extensively in the injury prevention literature. For the last 7-10 years, my colleagues and I have focused on the sports injuries among children and adolescents.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5129.0: Prevention and Treatment of Sport-Related Injuries among Young Athletes (organized jointly with the Injury section)