Progress continues in ensuring safety for nation's high school athletes
The Korey Stringer Institute aims to improve student athlete safety
across the country

Date:
August 18, 2021
Source:
University of Connecticut
Summary:
Researchers began publishing annual reports and bi-annual updates
examining the health and safety policies for secondary schools
for each individual state and Washington, D.C. The evaluations are
based on safety measures states can implement, including emergency
action plans, having automatic external defibrillators on site,
training coaches to look for signs of concussion, treatment of
exertional heat stroke and others.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Starting in 2017, UConn's Korey Stringer Institute (KSI), a part of the
College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources, began publishing
annual reports and bi-annual updates examining the health and safety
policies for secondary schools for each individual state and Washington,
D.C. The evaluations are based on safety measures states can implement, including emergency action plans, having automatic external defibrillators
on site, training coaches to look for signs of concussion, treatment of exertional heat stroke and others.

Since KSI began this process three years ago, 38 states have adopted legislative or state high school athletic association changes that
improve safety for student athletes, according to its latest findings.


==========================================================================
The paper detailing nationwide updates and progress was published this
week in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

The report illustrates the progress made since 2017, and it also helps
Team Up for Sports Safety (TUFFS) zero in on ways to help decision makers
take steps toward further improvements to safeguard athlete safety.

KSI and the TUFFS initiative has a mission to travel state-to-state
to meet with policymakers to ensure life-saving policies are adopted nationwide, explains Rebecca Stearns Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology, Chief Operating Officer of the Korey Stringer Institute,
and Director of TUFFS.

"We decided to do a state-based approach and make it a really targeted, individualized approach for the states," she says.

Policies take time to be implemented, but TUFFS strives to make the
process smoother by meeting with key individuals from each state to help identify areas for swift and impactful change. The process involves
scheduling meetings with representatives from each state to present
policies and measures tailored to that state, which address areas for improvement.



==========================================================================
"We meet with key individuals -- for instance, the State Athletic
Association, sports medicine, advisory committees, superintendents,
principals, legislators, anybody that could play a role in either
enforcing or implementing the policies for high school sport safety,"
says Stearns. "Then we focus on four conditions we call the four H's;
head, heart, heat, and hemoglobin, which translate to cardiac arrest,
head injuries, heat stroke, and sickle cell trait. Those four conditions
make up 90% of the deaths that we see, so that's why we target those when
we go to the state meetings." By the end of the meeting, Stearns says,
"We have a policy document that the decision makers can take forth and
be voted upon or put through a legislative route." This approach has
been successful, as outlined in the report, with every state that has
met with TUFFS seeing significant improvements at implementing life-
saving safety measures.

"In the last three years, the top five states [with improved safety]
were all states that TUFFS visited," Stearns says. "We're proud of the
fact that those are the states making the biggest score increase in the
last three years. Also, none of the states ranked in the bottom five
have had a TUFFS meeting yet. In terms of the impact, the mean score
increases by 10% after we've worked with states." Stearns explains that
often the biggest hurdles in implementing policy changes are linked to
funding questions, but that isn't the sole obstacle.

"The other big roadblock is who ultimately has to answer for athlete
health and safety. Is it the state high school association that is
responsible for that? Is it legislative or laws?" Despite those
challenges, and the sometimes-slow process of policy change, the TUFFS
team is encouraged by the report and the fact that momentum is building,
but Stearns adds that more work needs to be done in raisin awareness. With millions of students participating in sports each year, many schools
across the country remain unprepared or underprepared to respond
effectively in the event of potentially life-threatening complications.

"I think a lot of parents have this underlying assumption and kind
of a false sense of security that, if you send your kids to practice,
there are guidelines and rules in place that are going to protect them,
when we know that that's definitely not the case. Unfortunately, in
the last five years we've seen over 300 sport-related deaths at the
high school level alone, so we are just trying to curb that. Parents
should be asking things like 'Do you have an athletic trainer? Do you
have an emergency action plan? Where is the nearest AED?', Because those
could all be things that save your child's life. Bringing attention to
it and getting parents in the local community to kind of push for this
and support it and start asking questions, I think it goes a long way." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Connecticut. Original
written by Elaina Hancock. Note: Content may be edited for style and
length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Samantha E. Scarneo-Miller, Christianne M. Eason, William M. Adams,
Rebecca L. Stearns, Douglas J. Casa. State-Level Implementation
of Health and Safety Policies to Prevent Sudden Death and
Catastrophic Injuries Within High Schools: An Update. The
American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2021; 036354652110318 DOI:
10.1177/03635465211031849 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210818130545.htm

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