title: Epidemiology of 10,000 high school football injuries: patterns of injury by position played.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  With more than 1.1 million high school athletes playing annually during the 2005-06 to 2009-10 academic years, football is the most popular boys' sport in the United States.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using an internet-based data collection tool, RIO, certified athletic trainers (ATs) from 100 nationally representative US high schools reported athletic exposure and football injury data during the 2005-06 to 2009-10 academic years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participating ATs reported 10,100 football injuries corresponding to an estimated 2,739,187 football-related injuries nationally. The injury rate was 4.08 per 1000 athlete-exposures (AEs) overall. Offensive lineman collectively (center, offensive guard, offensive tackle) sustained 18.3% of all injuries. Running backs (16.3%) sustained more injuries than any other position followed by linebackers (14.9%) and wide receivers (11.9%). The leading mechanism of injury was player-player contact (64.0%) followed by player-surface contact (13.4%). More specifically, injury occurred most commonly when players were being tackled (24.4%) and tackling (21.8%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patterns of football injuries vary by position. Identifying such differences is important to drive development of evidence-based, targeted injury prevention efforts.
authors: Center for Injury Research and Policy, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors: Marcus A
authors: MA
authors: Badgeley
authors: Natalie M
authors: NM
authors: McIlvain
authors: Ellen E
authors: EE
authors: Yard
authors: Sarah K
authors: SK
authors: Fields
authors: R Dawn
authors: RD
authors: Comstock
mesh_terms: D001265:Athletic Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology*; D005538:Football / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D012574:Schools / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*