FRIDAY, Dec. 20, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Concussions are common among the U.S. collegiate population, with rates higher for non-sport-related concussion versus sport-related concussion, according to a study published online Dec. 18 in JAMA Network Open.
John Breck, D.O., from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and colleagues used data from three academic years (August 2015 to April 2018) to measure concussion incidence among collegiate undergraduate students at a large, public university in the United States and to describe characteristics associated with concussion incidence.
The researchers identified 954 undergraduate students from the general undergraduate population with at least one concussion (502 men, 452 women, and 1,020 total concussions). Eighty concussions occurred among the varsity athlete population (54 women) during two years. Overall, the concussion incidence was 132.4 concussions per 10,000 students. The concussion rate among men was 126.1 concussions per 10,000 students versus 140 per 10,000 among women during the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 academic years. The rate of non-sport-related concussions was higher than the rate of sport-related concussions (81 versus 51.5 per 10,000 students). Concussion incidence peaked in August at the start of the academic year.
“Our findings suggest that concussion among U.S. undergraduate students is a significant health care burden for student health care centers,” the authors write.
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