Injury Newsroom

Head-Related Deaths Accounted For 69 Percent Of Football Fatalities, Cervical Spinal Injuries For 16.3 Percent

A football-related fatality has occurred every year from 1945 through 1999, except for 1990. Head-related deaths accounted for 69% of football fatalities, cervical spinal injuries for 16.3%, and other injuries for 14.7%. High school football produced the greatest number of football head-related deaths. From 1984 through 1999, 69 football head-related injuries resulted in permanent disability. Sixty-three of the injuries were associated with high school football and 6 with college football. Although football has received the most attention, other sports have also been associated with head-related deaths and permanent disability injuries. From 1982 through 1999, 20 deaths and 19 permanent disability injuries occurred in a variety of sports. Track and field, baseball, and cheerleading had the highest incidence of these catastrophic injuries. Three deaths and 3 injuries resulting in permanent disability have occurred in female participants.

Conclusions/Recommendations:

Reliable data collection systems and continual analysis of the data can help us to reduce the number of catastrophic head-related injuries. I include additional recommendations for injury prevention