Approaching community priorities in youth sports injury prevention research

Abstract

Background: Research in youth sports is often complex. As interest in youth sports injury prevention grows, scientists should consider community priorities beyond a specific research study. Main text: This commentary discusses the authors' personal experiences researching concussion prevention in middle school sports, as the overarching community faced multiple challenges. These challenges included a series of weather-related emergencies that resulted in a shift in the community's priorities, multi-day school closures, and cancellations of sports activities and meetings. We discuss the importance of considering community priorities and providing support as scientists, colleagues, and members of the communities in which we conduct research. Conclusion: Scientists should consider the changing circumstances and dynamics surrounding community priorities in order to help drive their research-based decisions and ensure successful and respectful applications of research based on community values and priorities.

Sports and non-sports-related concussions among Medicaid-insured children: health care utilization before and after Ohio’s concussion law

“…Our study, in line with others (Meehan 3rd and Mannix 2010 ; McCrory et al 2017 ; Haarbauer-Krupa et al 2018 ; Gonzalez et al 2020 ; Kerr et al 2020 ), revealed higher proportions of health care utilization for SRCs among older aged males as compared to females or younger age groups. We speculate that this finding may be due in part to the prevalence of concussion in male dominated sports such as American football (McCrory et al 2017 ; Gonzalez et al 2020 ; Kerr et al 2020 ). Consistent with prior studies (Meehan 3rd and Mannix 2010 ; Haarbauer-Krupa et al 2018 ), we found higher proportions of health care utilization for NSRCs in younger age groups than older age groups.…”