Five international consensus statements on concussion in sports have been published. This commentary argues that there is a strong need for a new approach to them that foregrounds public health expertise and patient-centered guidance. Doing so will help players, parents and practitioners keep perspective about these potentially life-altering injuries especially when they recur.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Hist Med Allied Sci
April 2019
After World War II, organized tackle football programs for boys younger than high school age grew enormously in popularity in the United States, prompting concerns from pediatricians and educators about the sport's physical and emotional health effects. At the same time, sports medicine was emerging as a sub-specialty. Examining how American sports medicine doctors and football coaches established their professional authority on youth football safety in the 1950s and 1960s reveals how their justifications for this collision sport were connected to broader cultural trends.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe framing of the risks of experiencing mild traumatic brain injury in American football and ice hockey has an enormous impact in defining the scope of the problem and the remedies that are prioritized. According to the prevailing risk frame, an acceptable level of safety can be maintained in these contact sports through the application of technology, rule changes, and laws. An alternative frame acknowledging that these sports carry significant risks would produce very different ethical, political, and social debates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Public Health
December 2013
Health Aff (Millwood)
July 2013
Campaigns to limit tobacco use started in the 1970s and have led to bans on public smoking, which have been extended to parks and beaches. A review of state and local statutes shows that during 1993-2011, smoking was banned in 843 parks and on 150 beaches across the United States. Three justifications for these restrictions have been invoked: the risk of passive smoke to nonsmokers, the pollution caused by cigarette butts, and the long-term risks to children from seeing smoking in public.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The purpose of this research is to describe the leading circumstances of military vehicle crashes to guide prioritization and implementation of crash avoidance and/or warning technologies.
Methods: A descriptive study using narrative text analysis on 3,944 military vehicle crash narratives. Crash data on drivers, from 2001 to 2006, were assembled from the U.
Ice hockey and motorcycle riding are increasingly popular activities in the United States that are associated with high risks of head and facial injuries. In both, effective head and facial protective equipment are available. Yet the debates about safety policies regarding the use of head protection in these activities have taken different forms, in terms of the influence of epidemiological data as well as of the ethical concerns raised.
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