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. 2019 Dec;47(14):3498-3504.
doi: 10.1177/0363546519882034. Epub 2019 Nov 7.

Do American Youth Football Players Intentionally Use Their Heads for High-Magnitude Impacts?

Jaclyn Alois  1 , Srinidhi Bellamkonda  1 , Eamon T Campolettano  2 , Ryan A Gellner  2 , Amaris Genemaras  3 , Jonathan G Beckwith  3 , Richard M Greenwald  3 , Eric Smith  4 , Steven Rowson  2 , Stefan M Duma  2 , Joseph J Crisco  1
Affiliations

Do American Youth Football Players Intentionally Use Their Heads for High-Magnitude Impacts?

Jaclyn Alois et al. Am J Sports Med. 2019 Dec.

Abstract

Background: Concern for head injuries is widespread and has been reported by the media to be the number one cause of decreased participation in football among the American youth population. Identifying player mechanisms associated with intentional, or purposeful, head impacts should provide critical data for rule modifications, educational programs, and equipment design.

Purpose: To investigate the frequency of intentional and unintentional head impacts and to examine the player mechanisms associated with intentional high-magnitude head impacts by comparing the impact mechanism distributions among session type, player position, and ball possession.

Study design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3.

Methods: Head impact sensors and video footage of 68 players were used to analyze and classify 1319 high-magnitude impacts recorded over 1 season of youth football.

Results: In total, 80% of the high-magnitude head impacts were classified as being caused by intentional use of the head. Head-to-head impact was the primary impact mechanism (n = 868; 82.7%) within the 1050 intentional high-magnitude impacts, with classifiable mechanisms, followed by head-to-body (n = 139; 13.2%), head-to-ground (n = 34; 3.2%), and head-to-equipment (n = 9; 0.9%). Head-to-head impacts also accounted for a greater proportion of impacts during practices (n = 625; 88.9%) than games, for linemen (n = 585; 90.3%) than perimeters and backs, and for ball carriers (n = 72; 79.1%) than tacklers.

Conclusion: Overall, the majority of high-magnitude head impacts were intentional and resulted from head-to-head contact. The proportion of head-to-head contact was significantly higher for practices than games, linemen than backs and perimeter players, and ball carriers than tacklers.

Keywords: football; head; impact; intentional; mechanism; youth players.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: Jonathan G. Beckwith, Richard M. Greenwald, and Joseph J. Crisco have a financial interest in the instruments (HIT System, Sideline Response System, Riddell, Inc.) that were used to collect the biomechanical data reported in this study.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Distributions of impact mechanisms for the intentional high magnitude head impacts over games and practices.
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Distributions of the impact mechanisms for the intentional high magnitude head impacts across sessions (A), player positions (B), and ball possession (C).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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