Injury Prevention in Youth Sports

Created 11 Mar 2024| Updated 05 Jun 2024 | 5 articles
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Large numbers of youth (aged younger than 18) engage in organized sports worldwide, benefitting physically, psychologically, socially, and academically. However, sports participation is also associated with injury risk for participants. In general, the injury risks for youth participants are mild-moderate. At a population level, because of the large number of participants, the healthcare burden can be large. Thus, efforts to mitigate injury are important public health interventions. Further, injuries sustained during youth sports can result in adverse outcomes such as drop-out from participation or longer-term impacts such as osteoarthritis and pain.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in specific challenges for youth sport participation, causing complete stoppages to restructuring and re-scheduling. Both empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests that as a broader return to sport has been possible, injury incidence rates have increased. As a result, it is crucial to have renewed focus on injury prevention programming targeted at health and safety of youth sport athletes.

The goal of this Article Collection is to solicit the contribution and submission of any articles and findings in injury prevention in youth sports. We encourage research that provides insights into the following areas of interest:

  • Consideration of marginalized and underrepresented communities within local, national, and global contexts.

  • Examinations of emerging sports, be they newly established in a particular geographic region or rising in popularity globally.

  • A focus on implementation science and knowledge translation, and/or community-based participatory research.

  • Multi-level examinations of the factors that influence the development of interventions, as well as their implementation and evaluation. This may include behavioral, interpersonal, organizational, cultural, and policy-driven elements.

  • Consequences and solutions addressing challenges experienced because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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