Total number of concussions tripled among female athletes in 20-year period
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SAN DIEGO — Results presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting showed the total number of concussions tripled among female athletes aged 14 to 18 years during a 20-year period.
Robert L. Parisien, MD, and colleagues queried the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database for all female athletes aged 14 to 18 years who presented to an ED with sports-related concussions or closed head injuries from 2000 to 2019.
“We found that concussions over that period of time had increased in 14- to 18-year-old female athletes from about 9,000 to 32,000 in 2019,” Parisien, an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon at Mount Sinai in New York City, told Healio Orthopedics. “So, concussions did triple in that age group of female athletes.”
Parisien noted 65% of all concussions among female athletes occurred in soccer, basketball, cheerleading, softball and volleyball. Researchers also found an association between an increase of 10,000 annual female participants across all high school sports and recreational activities, with 308.7 additional annual sports-related concussions and closed head injuries, according to results of simple univariate regression models.
Despite showing an increase in the number of concussions and closed head injuries among female athletes in a 20-year period, the study did not identify why the increase occurred, which Parisien said could be multifactorial.
“It could be because there is increased participation in sports by females over that 20-year period or in the five particular sports that we identified as having an increased risk for concussions or it could simply be because we are now getting better as a society at identifying athletes, and in this case female athletes, that are either concussed or potentially concussed,” Parisien said.
He added, “Future research is warranted to fully understand why we are seeing this substantial increase in concussion rates over a 20-year period of time in female athletes.”
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Kelly JD, et al. Poster 0217. Presented at: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting; Aug. 31 – Sept. 3, 2021; San Diego.
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