Dive Brief:
- A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that public health campaigns and other efforts to raise awareness about the dangers of concussions and other related head injuries may have contributed to a significant jump in ED visits for traumatic brain injury over the past four years.
- To study the issue, researchers looked at emergency department data for the four-year period between 2006 and 2010. During that period, 1.7% of the 138 million emergency department visits resulted in a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury.
- ED visits for this condition increased at a rate eight times higher than total visits to emergency departments during that time period.
Dive Insight:
According to the study's authors, these numbers suggest not only increased education and awareness of TBIs, but also an increased number of people participating in sports. In identifying the possibility that sports-related injuries may have contributed to the spike in TBIs, researchers have touched on a problem that has been getting mainstream media attention lately in professional football. Perhaps this study will prompt other researchers to focus on prevention of TBIs during sports events.