Patterns of football injuries vary, especially by type of exposure and level of play. Future studies should continue to compare differences in injury patterns in high school and collegiate football, with particular emphasis placed on high-risk plays (running plays) and positions (running backs and linebackers).

Severe injury rates and patterns varied by sport, gender, and type of exposure. Because severe injuries negatively affect athletes' health and often place an increased burden on the health care system, future research should focus on developing interventions to decrease the incidence and severity of sports-related injuries.

Anterior cruciate ligament injury rates vary by sport, sex, and type of exposure. Recognizing such differences is important when evaluating the effectiveness of evidence-based, targeted prevention efforts.

Purpose US high school athletes sustain millions of injuries annually. Detailed patterns of knee injuries, among the most costly sports injuries, remain largely unknown. We hypothesize that patterns of knee injuries in US high school sports differ by sport and gender. Methods US High school sports-related injury data were collected for 20 sports using the National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance System, High School RIO™. Knee injury rates, rate ratios, and injury proportion ratios were calculated. Results From 2005/06–2010/11, 5,116 knee injuries occurred during 17,172,376 athlete exposures (AEs) for an overall rate of 2.98 knee injuries per 10,000 AEs. Knee injuries were more common in competition than practice (RR 3.53, 95% CI 3.34–3.73). Football had the highest knee injury rate (6.29 per 10,000 AEs) followed by girls’ soccer (4.53) and girls’ gymnastics (4.23). Girls had significantly higher knee injury rates than boys in gender-comparable sports (soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball/softball, lacrosse, swimming and diving, and track and field) (RR 1.52, 95% CI 1.39–1.65). The most commonly involved structure was the MCL (reported in 36.1% of knee injuries), followed by the patella/patellar tendon (29.5%), ACL (25.4%), meniscus (23.0%), LCL (7.9%), and PCL (2.4%). Girls were significantly more likely to sustain ACL injuries in gender-comparable sports (RR 2.38, 95% CI 1.91–2.95). Overall, 21.2% of knee injuries were treated with surgery; girls were more often treated with surgery than boys in gender-comparable sports (IPR 1.30, 95% CI 1.11–1.53). Conclusions Knee injury patterns differ by sport and gender. Continuing efforts to develop preventive interventions could reduce the burden of these injuries.

As the number of high school students participating in athletics continues to increase, so will the number of sports-related concussions unless effective concussion prevention programs are developed. We sought to develop and validate a cost-effective tool to measure neck strength in a high school setting, conduct a feasibility study to determine if the developed tool could be reliably applied by certified athletic trainers (ATs) in a high school setting, and conduct a pilot study to determine if anthropometric measurements captured by ATs can predict concussion risk. In the study's first phase, 16 adult subjects underwent repeated neck strength testing by a group of five ATs to validate the developed hand-held tension scale, a cost effective alternative to a hand-held dynamometer. In the second phase, during the 2010 and 2011 academic years, ATs from 51 high schools in 25 states captured pre-season anthropometric measurements for 6,704 high school athletes in boys' and girls' soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, as well as reported concussion incidence and athletic exposure data. We found high correlations between neck strength measurements taken with the developed tool and a hand-held dynamometer and the measurements taken by five ATs. Smaller mean neck circumference, smaller mean neck to head circumference ratio, and weaker mean overall neck strength were significantly associated with concussion. Overall neck strength (p < 0.001), gender (p < 0.001), and sport (p = 0.007) were significant predictors of concussions in unadjusted models. After adjusting for gender and sport, overall neck strength remained a significant predictor of concussion (p = 0.004). For every one pound increase in neck strength, odds of concussion decreased by 5 % (OR = 0.95, 95 % CI 0.92-0.98). We conclude that identifying differences in overall neck strength may be useful in developing a screening tool to determine which high school athletes are at higher risk of concussion. Once identified, these athletes could be targeted for concussion prevention programs.