ShareThisScripps Howard News Service's review of high school sports medicine around the country included two data analyses.
First, we determined how many high schools with sports programs have athletic trainers.
The National Athletic Trainers' Association's most recent figures for the number of its members working primarily in secondary schools in each state showed 6,374. (The association estimates that 85 percent of all athletic trainers in the country are members, so this number is probably an undercount.)
We also reviewed data and membership lists from state high school athletic associations to identify 18,426 high schools offering some level of interscholastic sports.
Assuming each secondary school athletic trainer was working full-time at one of the high schools, then 34 percent of high schools with sports programs have full coverage.
Second, we examined whether students get more appropriate care for injuries when an athletic trainer is on staff.
Data on team sports injuries among 14-to-18-year-olds from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, an organization representing 100 hospital-emergency rooms, and from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, showed the answer is yes.
In states where there are more athletic trainers, athletes with concussions and serious fractures were more likely to go to a hospital.
Schools with fewer professional caregivers were more likely to send athletes with lesser injuries like cuts and abrasions to the ER than were those with higher proportions of trainers.
We also analyzed nearly 95,000 records from all the reporting hospitals to come up with statistics on the most common injury diagnoses and most commonly injured body parts among 14-to-18-year-olds.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Part of Athletic Trainer package
