Injury Statistics: Sport and Recreational Injury - The Scope of the Problem

National Data

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More sports-related non-fatal injuries are treated in hospital emergency departments than any other type of unintentional injury (1). Approximately 4.3 million sports and recreation-related injuries were treated in hospital emergency departments during July 2000-June 2001 (NEISS-AIP) (1). This represents 15.7% of all non-fatal unintentional injuries, across all ages and genders (Figure 2.1). Among children aged 10-14 years, 46.3% of all non-fatal unintentional injury ED visits were a result of a sports- or recreation-related injury. Although this percentage was lower among adolescents 15-19 years old (31.4%), sports and recreation related injuries in this age group still represented nearly one-third of all ED visits (1).

Other national surveys have highlighted the problem of sports injuries among children and adolescents. During the years 1997-1998, an estimated 2.6 million annual ED visits were sports and recreation-related (1997-1998 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey for people ages 5-24 years (2). However, results from the 1997-1999 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), showed that when medical treatment beyond ED visits was included, that figure rose to almost 4.5 million annual sports and recreation-related injuries (3). This is supported by prior NHIS data from the 1988 Child Health Supplement that reported nearly 4.4 million children ages 5 to 17 years old suffered a sports and recreation-related injury, representing 35.8% of all injuries to people that age (4).

The next two tables show the types of sports and percentage of non-fatal unintentional injuries treated in EDs, among boys and girls, respectively, ages 10-19 years (1) . For boys, football and basketball had the highest percentage of ED-treated injuries for an individual sport while for girls, basketball and bicycle injuries were the most commonly treated. For both girls and boys, the ‘other’ category included 301 other sports and recreation activities.

References:

1. Prevention CfDCa. Nonfatal sports- and recreation-related injuries treated in emergency departments - United States, July 2000 - June 2001. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2002;51:736-740.

2. Burt CW, Overpeck MD. Emergency visits for sports-related injuries. Ann Emerg Med 2001;23:301-308.

3. Conn JM, Annest JL, Gilchrist J. Sports and recreation related injury episodes in the US population, 1997-99. Injury Prevention 2003;9:117-123.

4. Bijur PE, Trumble A, Harel Y, Overpeck MD, Jones D, Scheidt PC. Sports and recreation injuries in US children and adolescents. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 1995;149:1009-1016.

5. Mueller FO, Cantu RC. National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research - Twentieth annual report, Fall 1982-Spring 2002. Chapel Hill: Injury Prevention Research CenterUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002.