(Scientific Session) Epidemiology of Injuries in United States High School Track and Field Throwing Events from 2008-2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe injury rates and patterns in high school track and field throwing events from a longitudinal national sports injury surveillance system in US schools.

Design: A descriptive epidemiology design was used.

Setting: Data were provided from the National High School Sports Related Injury Surveillance System, High School RIO (Reporting Information Online). Athletic Trainers (ATs) reported injury and exposure data through High School RIO: an internet-based sports injury surveillance system that captures data related to athletic exposures. Reportable injuries occurred during a practice or competition, required medical attention, and limited the athlete’s participation in a sport.

Participants: Participating athletes in this study were sampled from the RIO database from randomly selected schools with geographical stratification.

Interventions: Variables collected by ATs included: Year of sampling, demographics, injury details and injury event information. Only throwing events (discus, shot put, and javelin) were analyzed.

Main Outcome Measures: Rate ratios (RR) and injury proportion ratios (IPR) were used to determine differences in frequencies and proportions of injuries.

Results: A total of 267 track and field throwing injuries occurred during 5,486,279 AEs. The rate of injuries in competition was significantly higher than in practice ((0.46 injuries/10,000 AEs; RR=1.35, 95% CI 1.01-1.80) and was significantly higher in practice for girls compared to boys (RR 1.53, 95% CI 1.12-2.08). The most frequently injured body part was the shoulder (21.7% of injuries), followed by the ankle (16.5%) then the knee (12.0%). The most common types of injury were muscle strains (26.14%) and ligament sprains (25%).

Conclusions: High school athletes participating in throwing events are most likely to incur a shoulder injury, particularly muscle strain-related. Given the small number of injuries that occurred over a decade, future studies should continue evaluating injury rates and risk factors in track and field throwing athletes to develop targeted and evidence-based injury prevention strategies.