Is “Football for All” Safe for All? Cross-Sectional Study of Disparities as Determinants of 1-Year Injury Prevalence in Youth Football Programs

Abstract

BackgroundFootball (soccer) is endorsed as a health-promoting physical activity worldwide. When football programs are introduced as part of general health promotion programs, equal access and limitation of pre-participation disparities with regard to injury risk are important. The aim of this study was to explore if disparity with regard to parents’ educational level, player body mass index (BMI), and self-reported health are determinants of football injury in community-based football programs, separately or in interaction with age or gender.Methodology/Principal FindingsFour community football clubs with 1230 youth players agreed to participate in the cross-sectional study during the 2006 season. The study constructs (parents’ educational level, player BMI, and self-reported health) were operationalized into questionnaire items. The 1-year prevalence of football injury was defined as the primary outcome measure. Data were collected via a postal survey and analyzed using a series of hierarchical statistical computations investigating associations with the primary outcome measure and interactions between the study variables. The survey was returned by 827 (67.2%) youth players. The 1-year injury prevalence increased with age. For youths with parents with higher formal education, boys reported more injuries and girls reported fewer injuries than expected; for youths with lower educated parents there was a tendency towards the opposite pattern. Youths reporting injuries had higher standardized BMI compared with youths not reporting injuries. Children not reporting full health were slightly overrepresented among those reporting injuries and underrepresented for those reporting no injury.ConclusionPre-participation disparities in terms of parents’ educational level, through interaction with gender, BMI, and self-reported general health are associated with increased injury risk in community-based youth football. When introduced as a general health promotion, football associations should adjust community-based youth programs to accommodate children and adolescents with increased pre-participation injury risk.

Overweight and obesity are associated with musculoskeletal complaints as early as childhood: a systematic review

“…After screening titles and abstracts, we retrieved 132 full‐text papers for more detailed study. Finally, 40 papers met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review .…”

“…Fifteen studies reported associations between weight status and acute MSC . Dichotomous data were available from 11 studies and the results were pooled (Table ).…”

Prevalence of Sports‐Related Injuries and Illnesses in Paralympic Athletes

“…In cases where more than 20% of expected frequencies were less than five, Fisher's exact test was used. For the fifth step, three‐way interactions were analyzed using log‐linear analysis . The IBM SPSS Statistics version 24 was used.…”

“…For the fifth step, three-way interactions were analyzed using log-linear analysis. 29 The IBM SPSS Statistics version 24 was used. As the aim in this new field of research was to generate new hypotheses for future research, all P values <.05, uncorrected for multiple comparisons, were reported.…”

“…Three athletes did not respond; thus, in total, 104 athletes (97%) completed the questionnaire (Figure 1). The median age of the athletes was 29 years (interquartile range [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Data on athletes' demographics, impairment, behavior, and sport characteristics are presented in Tables 1 and 2.…”