Differences in Head Impact Exposures Between Youth Tackle and Flag Football Games and Practices

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Am J Sports Med
• Personal Author:
  Sarmiento, Kelly ; Waltzman, Dana ; Devine, Owen ; Zhang, Xinjian ; DePadilla, Lara ; Kresnow, Marcie-Jo ; Borradaile, Kelley ; Hurwitz, Andrew ; Jones, David ; Goyal, Ravi ; Breiding, Matthew J.
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• Description:
  Background: ; Interventions designed to reduce the risk for head impacts and concussion in youth football have increased over the past decade; however, understanding of the role of regular game play on head impact exposure among youth tackle and flag football athletes is currently limited. ; Purpose: ; To explore head impact exposure among youth tackle and flag football athletes (age range, 6-14 years) during both practices and games. ; Study Design: ; Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. ; Methods: ; Using the Vector MouthGuard sensor, the authors collected head impact data from 524 tackle and flag youth football athletes over the course of a football season. Quantities of interest were estimated from regression models using Bayesian methods. ; Results: ; For impacts ≥10g, a tackle football athlete had an estimated 17.55 (95% CI, 10.78-28.96) times more head impacts per practice compared with a flag football athlete (6.85 95% CI, 6.05-7.76 and 0.39 95% CI, 0.24-0.62 head impacts, respectively). Additionally, a tackle football athlete had an estimated 19.48 (95% CI, 12.74-29.98) times more head impacts per game compared with a flag football athlete (13.59 95% CI, 11.97-15.41 and 0.70 95% CI, 0.46-1.05 head impacts, respectively). Among tackle football athletes, the estimated average impact rate was 6.51 (95% CI, 5.75-7.37) head impacts during a practice and 12.97 (95% CI, 11.36-14.73) impacts during a game, resulting in 2.00 (95% CI, 1.74-2.29) times more ≥10g head impacts in games versus practices. Tackle football athletes had 2.06 (95% CI, 1.80-2.34) times more high-magnitude head impacts (≥40g) during a game than during a practice. On average, flag football athletes experienced an estimated 0.37 (95% CI, 0.20-0.60) head impacts during a practice and 0.77 (95% CI, 0.53-1.06) impacts during a game, resulting in 2.06 (95% CI, 1.29-3.58) times more ≥10g head impacts in games versus practices. Because of model instability caused by a large number of zero impacts for flag football athletes, a comparison of high-magnitude head impacts is not reported for practices or games. ; Conclusion: ; This study provides a characterization of the head impact exposure of practices and games among a large population of youth tackle and flag football athletes aged 6 to 14 years. These findings suggest that a greater focus on game-based interventions, such as fair play interventions and strict officiating, may be beneficial to reduce head impact exposures for youth football athletes.
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• Subjects:
  • Acceleration
  • Adolescent
  • Bayes Theorem
  • Brain Concussion
  • Child
  • Cohort Studies
  • Football
  • Humans
• Keywords:
  • head impact
  • practice
  • game
  • football
  • concussion
  • sensor
• Source:
  Am J Sports Med. 49(8):2218-2226
• Pubmed ID:
  33999722
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8335321
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Volume:
  49
• Issue:
  8
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/108704/cdc_108704_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 525.21 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:98efa4110a253732a1d0e26b0b22279fa80ceee696087388b8bdb0cb96c049a0162d45a387968e78edf5054a99220184b7b2c80c8c79c1847fd0b9d89acbd9c8