Several young football players died while playing the sport so far this year, raising the perpetual question of whether football is safe for kids.
Seven middle and high school students died in August alone while playing the sport — two of them after hits that caused head injuries. Others died from heat, cardiac, or other medical emergencies.
Last year, 16 student athletes died from football-related injuries, including one youth league death, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research (NCCSIR) at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Most deaths were among high school and college players. Three of those deaths were due to traumatic injury, while 10 were exertional/medical, the report stated.
Focus on Head Trauma
Those traumatic injuries have been the focus of concern, as football is responsible for the highest number of traumatic brain injury (TBI)-related emergency department visits for sports-related injuries in kids, according to Jill Daugherty, PhD, an epidemiologist on the TBI team at the CDC.
A CDC analysis showed that a quarter of ED visits among kids for sports-related TBI are due to football, Daugherty told MedPage Today in an email, adding that tackling is responsible for about two-thirds of concussions and other TBIs among high school football players.
Chris Nowinski, PhD, co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, in Boston, a non-profit advocacy organization that collects data on concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in athletes, said about 5% of youth football players are diagnosed with concussions each year.
However, many concussions in youth football players go undiagnosed because methods for identifying concussion used at the college and professional level — such as having physicians on the sidelines — “can’t be done at the youth level,” he said.
The risk of head impacts for youth players cannot be overstated, Nowinski said.
“Is it safe to hit a kid in the head 200 times?” he told MedPage Today, noting a CDC study found that the median number of head impacts in a season is 378 for 9- to 12-year-old kids. Recent research showed CTE is correlated to the number and strength of repetitive head hits people take over their lifetime, he added.
“If you only played a year or two of football, your risk of CTE is going to be low,” said Nowinski, who wrote the bookopens in a new tab or window Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis. “The kids who start young and are successful are in big trouble.”
Changing the Game
Changes to how youth football is played have been made over time, with a focus on reducing head impacts, Daugherty said. Several athletic organizations — including the National Federation of State High School Associations — have implemented new guidelines that restrict the amount and frequency of full-contact practices, she added.
For instance, extreme tackling exercises — like the Oklahoma drill — have been banned at every level of football, Andy Peterson, MD, a team physician for the University of Iowa football program, told MedPage Today.
“The way people practice, discouraging excess contact during practice, that’s really changed a lot in the sport, and some of that has been cultural [because] coaches want to keep their players healthy,” said Peterson, who is also a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness.
USA Football has also promoted its Heads Up Football, which aims to certify coaches and calls for teams to have a coach focused on player safety.
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