A new study has revealed that there is a greater percentage of public secondary schools than private schools in the United States offering athletic training services.

The results of the study published in the Journal of Athletic Training state that while 37 percent of public secondary schools have a full-time athletic trainer to meet the healthcare needs of student-athletes, only 28 percent of private secondary schools do.

According to the research, only 58 percent of private secondary schools provide some amount of athletic training services, compared to 70 percent for public schools.

“Despite the documented benefits of having an AT on site for both practices and games, many schools, public and private, do not provide this critical medical service to their students,” writes lead author Alicia Pike, MS, ATC, the associate director of research at the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut.

For the study, researchers from the Korey Stringer Institute in the Department of Kinesiology at UConn conducted the survey that was funded in part by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association. School athletic directors (or principals, if no athletic director was employed) from 8,509 public secondary schools and 2,044 private schools responded by phone or email. The data was collected from September 2011 to June 2014.

Despite the differences in athletic training services, though, both settings provided a similar number of student-athletes with access to medical care. Barriers to hiring trainers were seen as comparable between public and private secondary schools.

For more on the study, you can read the study from the scientific publication of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association scientific here.

Source: USA Today

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