CURRENT SOURCES OF SPORTS INJURY DATA
The general business of academe insures a continuous torrent of small-scale studies, dissertations and journal articles based on "local" data collection — often single-sport inquiries involving small numbers of athletes on high-school or college teams. Perhaps an even greater volume of injury data is generated by the claims departments of insurance carriers; but this tonnage of proprietary data is highly confidential and highly focused — compiled at the "micro" level on specific sports, situations, or recreational venues for the purpose of calculating product risk assessments, premiums, and many other actuarial functions.

At present, there are several large-scale injury surveillance systems, but not one provides a remotely accurate portrait of sports epidemiology in the U.S. Only one — in the form of a public behavior study (but embedded as an afterthought in the National Health Interview Survey) — is even capable of collecting nationwide "denominator" data.

Other sources are the following:

As the Holy Grail of sports injury data in the U.S., the latter study is invaluable; but it is also a national monument to the paucity of normative data on the subject. Based on a sample of roughly a hundred 24-hour emergency departments (in approximately 5,000 hospitals across the U.S.), the major limitation of this research is that by definition, it captures only relatively serious injuries…that is, only those requiring emergency room treatment. Preliminary data from the present study indicated that NEISS records only 15%-20% of all U.S. sports injuries.

The second major flaw is that the CPSC estimates are based on injuries that patients say are related to products; it is therefore incorrect (according to a caveat in the report itself) to "say the injuries were caused by the product". In other words, the injury was not necessarily related to sports participation...as in the case of Dad tripping over a skateboard in the garage, or more disturbingly, a baseball bat used as an instrument of violence.

The weakest aspect of the CPSC study is its inability to render injury incidence or risk estimates, providing only what epidemiologists call the "numerator" — e.g. the number of injuries. Since only a national survey of the U.S. population can furnish the total number of sports participants, (or derivative denominators), an emergency room study by definition precludes the necessary linkage between injuries, overall exposures, or more refined estimates of injury opportunity. Among its other shortcomings, NEISS has limited value for direct risk assessment; it cannot perform direct numerator/denominator calculations — e.g. injuries per 100 sports participants, per 1,000 athlete exposures, etc.

POTENTIAL BENEFICIARIES OF INJURY RESEARCH
In principle, the loftiest purpose of injury research is to reduce the number and incidence of personal injuries that derive from sports participation; and since the 1970's, this has been achieved in certain sports by the introduction of rule changes, better protective equipment and safer products. As a boon to further progress, we must be able to gauge the overall magnitude and scope of sports injuries, and provide a descriptive analysis that can be used by epidemiologists, risk management consultants, academic researchers, product manufacturers, sports medical suppliers and all others who may strive toward the practical goals of injury treatment or prevention.

However difficult to imagine, sports injury research also has a potential commercial payoff: lower consumer prices of sporting goods and equipment. Aside from the obvious savings derived from unnecessary sports injury treatment, more accurate risk assessment for sporting good products and sports participation venues could result in lower liability insurance premiums for the insured — a savings that presumably could be passed along to the end-users of sports products. And this is not to mention the biggest potential bonanza: a safer image for sports, promoting increased sports participation.

In sum, potential end-users of sports injury research include:

Sporting Goods Product Manufacturers		Insurance Carriers
Protective Equipment Manufacturers		Risk Management Consultants
Sports Participation Venues		Trial Lawyers
Sports Spectatorship Facilities/Venues		Sports Medicine Practitioners
Sports Medical Equipment Supply Companies		Sports Medicine Professional Associations

A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF SPORTS INJURIES IN THE U.S.

The present research is the first national "numerator/denominator" study since those conducted in the 1970's by Dr. Kenneth S. Clarke for the CPSC. The study is unique for three reasons:

1. It addresses the sports injury experience of all people over the age of six — not just a sample of high school or college athletes, and is projectable to the entire U.S. population;

2. It addresses all sports injuries — including less serious incidents and mishaps not requiring emergency treatment, left unrecorded by existing surveillance systems; and perhaps even more important, it monitors gradual/overuse injuries and conditions that are not sudden or traumatic, and therefore never treated in the ER — but are often serious enough to require long-term therapy or even surgery.

3. It makes the direct connection between injury experience and sports participation behavior — i.e. the sample of injured athletes is drawn from the same sampling universe as sports participation behavior (numerator and denominator derived from same sample). The long-standing "apples and oranges" problem — the inelegant, not to mention imprecise practice of divining injury rates by matching two completely different data sources — is hereby eliminated.

As the definitive study of its kind in the U.S., the SUPERSTUDY® of Sports Participation has always offered a plethora of denominator data (measurements of 103 sports/activities and health club attendance) from its annual survey. Beginning in the January 2003 wave, a battery of Sports Injury items was added to the questionnaire:

*	Sports Injury Experience		*	Specific Type of Injury
*	Sport/Activity		*	Impact on Future Participation
*	Circumstances of Injury		*	Medical Treatment Received
*	General Injury Type (Sudden/Gradual)

To enhance the analysis, injuries are classified according to degree of "severity":

Level I
Injury did not interfere with subsequent participation.

Level II
Injury prevented participation on at least one or more future occasions, but for less than a month.

Level III
Injury prevented participation for at least a month.

Level IV
Injury prevented participation for at least a month and resulted in emergency room treatment, overnight hospital stay, surgery or ongoing physical therapy.

Data will be presented both in aggregate form, i.e. total sports injuries and by individual sport/activity, including various (net) measurements. Analytical variables include demography, geography, injury severity, injury classification, (both general and specific), body area injured, medical treatment, participation consequences.

Sport-specific data are presented by number of participants, total athlete exposures, total number of injuries, incidence per 100 total participants, per 100 frequent participants, per 1,000 athlete exposures, by injury Level I, II, III or IV, major injury classification, medical treatment and impact on future participation.