Striking gender-based difference in concussion incidents: study

Female athletes, in particular soccer players, suffer concussions at a “significantly higher” rate than their male counterparts, according to a study released this month by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

In matched sports, girls were 12.1 per cent more likely to sustain a concussion than boys, according to the report, which tracked concussions in a sport relative to total number of injuries from 2005 to 2015 using the High School Reporting Information Online injury surveillance system. In basketball, for example, concussions only accounted for 8.8 per cent of boys’ injuries, but 25.6 per cent of girls’ injuries.

“The neck muscles of girls just aren’t as developed as boys are,” said Wellington Hsu, one of the study’s authors and a professor of orthopedic surgery at Northwestern Uni- versity in Illinois. “So if girls experience an impact, it makes sense they might be affected by it more than boys if they don’t have the muscles to cushion that impact.”

Researchers from Northwestern and Wake Forest University studied data from football, soccer, basketball, wrestling and baseball participation for boys; soccer, basketball, volleyball and softball for girls.

The results showed a striking gender- based difference in the incidents of concussion. Football, a sport most typically associated with brain injury but also has a high number of total injuries due to its being a collision sport, was fourth on the list of concussion as a percentage of total injuries, behind girls’ soccer, girls’ volleyball and girls’ basketball.

“We were surprised at how the incidence of concussions particularly in girls over the past five years has increased,” Hsu said.