Female soccer players suffer the most concussions in high school sports

High school girls have a significantly higher concussion rate than boys, with female soccer players suffering the most concussions, according to research presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS).


“While American football has been both scientifically and colloquially associated with the highest concussion rates, our study found that girls, and especially those who play soccer, may face a higher risk,” said Wellington Hsu, MD, professor of orthopaedics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “The new knowledge presented in this study can lead to policy and prevention measures to potentially halt these trends.”

The findings include:

• In gender matched sports, girls experienced significantly higher concussion rates than boys.
• During the years after TBI law enactment (2010 to 2015), the concussion rate was higher in girls soccer than boys football, and during the 2014-2015 school year, concussions were more common in girls soccer than any other sport.
• Boys baseball and girls volleyball had the most significant increase in the rate of concussions during the 10-year study period.

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