The goal of this project is to identify patterns of injury among male and female athletes in North Carolina High Schools participating in any of 12 sports.
Specific aims are to measure the incidence, severity and etiology of injuries by sport; to determine the relationship of demographic and protective equipment, exposure, and school characteristics and injuries; to study the relationship of coaches' training and experience to injury occurrence; to compare the incidence and severity of injury among female and male athletes in the same or comparable sports; and ultimately to make specific recommendations aimed at reducing the number and severity of high school athletic injuries. The investigators state that any health problem that affects over one-half of the five to six million male and female high school athletes annually, and in which the population at risk is increasing, should be a concern of secondary school administrators and sport coaches. The target population for this study is all athletes participating in 12 sports in North Carolina High Schools. The research design is longitudinal in the sense that the 12 sports teams in each of 100 schools will be studied over three years. The random sampling method will be a two stage cluster design of sport teams within selected schools. Protective equipment use and demographic information will be obtained from all athletes participating in each selected sport at each of the 100 selected schools, at the beginning of each sport season. A self- administered questionnaire will be completed by the coach and assistant coach of each selected sport team. Exposure information will be obtained by weekly participation forms completed by the sport coaches or managers, and an injury report form will be used to document each injury that occurs. It is estimated that during the three years of data collection, the study will document the participation and injury experiences of 45,000 athletes. The initial series of data analysis will be descriptive in order to produce estimates that profile the state and various population subgroups. Regression analysis which properly accounts for the complexity of the research design will be the primary tool for the secondary analysis and will be used to analyze hypothesis dealing with the relationship between the occurrence of injury the potential predictors.
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| Schulz, Mark R; Marshall, Stephen W; Yang, Jingzhen et al. (2004) A prospective cohort study of injury incidence and risk factors in North Carolina high school competitive cheerleaders. Am J Sports Med 32:396-405 |
| Weaver, N L; Mueller, F O; Kalsbeek, W D et al. (1999) The North Carolina High School Athletic Injury Study: design and methodology. Med Sci Sports Exerc 31:176-82 |
