High School Athletics

New Jersey Champions Sports Safety Campaign

KSI Logo

New Jersey Leads National Effort to Adopt 

Lifesaving Measures for High School Athletes

 

“Raise Your Rank” campaign encourages all states to adopt important safety guidelines

NEW JERSEY– Many states across the country are not fully implementing important safety guidelines intended to protect student athletes from potentially life-threatening conditions. Research has shown that nearly 90 percent of all sudden death in sports is caused by four conditions: sudden cardiac arrest, traumatic head injury, exertional heat stroke, and exertional sickling. Adopting evidence-based safety measures significantly reduces these risks. With more than 7.8 million high school students participating in sanctioned sports each year, it is vital that individual states begin taking proper steps to ensure their high school athletes are protected. The call for action came this past fall when the University of Connecticut’s Korey Stringer Institute (KSI), a national sports safety research and advocacy organization, released a comprehensive state-by-state assessment of high school sports health and safety policies. New Jersey currently ranks 4thnationally in terms of meeting all of the recommended safety guidelines with a score of 67%.

 

KEY INITIATIVES:

In response to the findings, New Jersey officials are collaborating with the KSI in addressing existing gaps in state policy to improve high school athlete safety. New Jersey is the first state to join the KSI’s national “Raise Your Rank” campaign, which started in 2018. The campaign aims to raise funds to support meetings with state representatives in order to improve mandated best practice policies and increase implementation of those policies.

 

“With support and guidance from the experts at the Korey Stringer Institute, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association and Senator Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex) will convene this week to begin taking the necessary steps to improve the health and safety of our secondary school athletes,” says David Csillan (Ewing HS Athletic Trainer and NJSIAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee). “Our goal is to be the first state to be 100% compliant with the recommended safety guidelines.”

 

This is not the first time New Jersey has led the way in improving the health and safety of high school athletes.  New Jersey was the first state to implement heat acclimatization policies for high school athletes in 2011. Acclimatization policies require teams to allow athletes to adjust to hot conditions in late summer by phasing in practices, participating without heavy equipment, and requiring frequent breaks to allow athletes to recover and stay hydrated. Since 2011, six states have implemented similar heat acclimatization policies with positive results; there have been no reports of exertional heat stroke deaths in states where acclimatization policies are in place and properly followed.

 

“A hallmark of my tenure of as a legislator, working collaboratively with the Athletic Trainers’ Society of New Jersey, is to make New Jersey high school sports safer for our children by creating researched-based state policies to address preventable sudden deaths,” says Sen. Diegnan. “My hope is that through this conscientiousness partnership, we will shine a light on the great measures this state legislature has taken to restrict cardiac arrest, exertional heat stroke, and head injury deaths in our student athletes and to develop further needed changes to ensure all athletes enjoy their high school sports experiences — and live to tell about them.”

 

KSI CEO Douglas Casa has been leading KSI since its inception in 2010 and has made athlete safety a focused effort of the institute. “We know that implementation of these important health and safety policies has dramatically reduced sport-related fatalities,” says Casa. “We are excited that New Jersey is taking action to continue to improve its policies and become a leader in minimizing sport-related high school deaths.”

 

For more information about the Raise Your Rank campaign, including how to apply for KSI support and how to donate to the cause, please visit ksi.uconn.edu.

 

 

 

Media Contacts

Douglas Casa, Korey Stringer Institute, UConn                      David Csillan, NJ Sports Medicine Advisory Committee

Douglas.casa@uconn.edu                                                                     njatc5@gmail.com

(860) 486-0265 (office)                                                                         (609) 651-3053 (cell)

 

 

ATLAS Update

Sarah Antasio, ATC

Assistant Director of Research

As of February 21st 2018, the ATLAS project is 100% Mapped. Translation = we have identified every high school with an athletics program in the United States (including the District of Columbia) and whether or not the student-athletes have access to an athletic trainer (AT). We have identified 20,443 high schools, those being public, private, magnet, alternative and special education schools. Within these high schools we have identified a total of , working either full or part time and providing care for the student-athletes during treatments and rehabilitation programs, practices and game competition.

A mission of KSI is to promote the athletic training profession as well as increase the number of ATs and appropriate health care provided to the athletes across all levels of sport. Our ATLAS data has determined that 66% (n = 13,492) of schools with athletic programs have access to an AT in some capacity. The National Athletic Trainers’ Association District 2 (DE, NY, NJ, PA), has the highest percentage of ATs, providing 57% of full-time coverage and 25% part-time.

The ATLAS survey began in June 2015 and we currently have a 49% completion rate. Surveys  have been completed by secondary school athletic trainers throughout the country.

The ATLAS project is a thirteen-person staff, consisting of 1 KSI faculty member, Dr. Robert Huggins, 2 Masters’ students: Brad Andres and Sarah Attanasio as well as ten undergraduate students volunteering their time to KSI and the project.

Click this link for type of AT services by district

2018 Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Sport Florida Meeting

SAMANTHA SCARNEO, PHD, ATC

VICE PRESIDENT OF SPORT SAFETY

Last week, Dr. Casa and I were fortunate to attend the 2018 Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Sport (CSSS) meeting for the state of Florida. Stemming from the national CSSS meeting, the goal for this meeting was to implement the best practice policies at a state level for high school athletes. This same meeting occurred in 2017, and while the program was educational and facilitated some changes, the ultimate goal of the current meeting was to bring well thought-out policies to the sports medicine advisory committee and board of directors to pass. While this program was meant educational, it was not meant to be continuing education; rather a workshop with the goal to create and fully vet the wording of policy to be implemented by the Florida High School Athletics Association.

 

 

 

The program, designed and facilitated by Bob Sefcik, ATC, included dinner and a keynote address from Dr. Casa on Monday evening. Dr. Casa’s presentation provided context to the reasoning behind and the methodology utilized for the creation of the policy rubric and the rankings. Starting bright and early on Tuesday, the meeting was kicked off by Dr. George Canizares and Dr. Casa who discussed the current policies and stated that the current meeting was held based on the foundation that was laid in the 2017 meeting. They also noted that the goal of this meeting was to leave with written policy language.

 

Following the morning speakers, we heard from two families whose children suffered catastrophic injuries while playing high school sports in Florida. Courtney Sapp’s son, Payton, suffered a catastrophic head injury while participating in a junior varsity football. She described the pain and long-term consequences that not only Payton, but her entire family has ensued since his injury. Lori and Ed Giordano’s son, Zach Martin, suffered a fatal exertional heat stroke during a football practice in the summer of 2016. Unfortunately, in both cases, there was no athletic trainer present to care for the safety of the student athletes. Further, the families advocated for increased education of sport related injuries such as concussion, exertional heat stroke, and cardiac arrest. They charged the members in attendance to remember their stories and to do everything in their power to make sports safer.

 

For the purpose of this meeting, there were five specific areas to focus on creating policies for – cold-water immersion, environmental monitoring, concussion, coach education, and minimal expectations for high schools. Each topic area had its own break-out group with a variety of stakeholders (athletic trainers, physicians, administrators, coaches, and parents) represented in each meeting. Prior to the start of the meeting, a white paper document corresponding to the group you were assigned were disseminated, and thus a majority of the discussion surrounded the material provided on this white paper. I was fortunate to facilitate the Environmental Monitoring group with Dr. Seth Smith. Having tangible, realistic goals of creating specific wording for policies from the breakout sessions allowed for a focused message and resulting actionable items for the sports medicine advisory committee (SMAC) to discuss at their meeting that night.

 

I was honored to be invited to the SMAC meeting that evening to provide additional insight and expertise, if needed. The members of the FHSAA SMAC are a very professional, determined and organized with the common goal of wanting to improve the health and safety standards for student athletes. I was very grateful for the invitation, and thoroughly enjoyed listening to the discussions that occurred.

 

To conclude, it was remarkable to see the amount that can be accomplished when key stakeholders within a state, with a common goal, collaborate to improve the current standards. It is truly a team effort and the comradery between the members in attendance was aspiring to be a part of. The policy ranking project was meant to be a project to help states identify areas of strengths and areas of improvement. We are excited to see states such as Florida take the findings of the project and use it as ignition to help improve the safety for our athletes. We fully believe that through policy change at the state level, and thus influencing the local implementation, that we can significantly reduce the amount of catastrophic injuries.

 

I would like to reiterate our deepest gratitude to Bob Sefcick for his generosity, helpfulness and invitation for Dr. Casa and I to participate in this event. We would also like to thank George Tomyn and the FHSAA for hosting the meeting.

Health and Safety Policy Ranking for High School Athletics

Samantha Scarneo, MS, ATC

Director of Sport Safety

On Tuesday, August 8th, the Korey Stringer Institute held a press conference for the release of the Health and Safety Policy Ranking for High School Athletics. The goal of this project was to review publically available information from high school associations and state legislation to determine how states are mandating safety standards for their athletes. A positive finding from this study is every state, including the District of Columbia, has some type of health and safety policy requirement for their high schools to follow. However, not a single state meets all of the minimum best practice requirements for the areas focused on in this project; which happen to be the top causes of sudden death in sport, accounting for over 90% of sport-related deaths.

 

North Carolina is leading the way scoring a 79%, followed by Kentucky (71.13%) and Massachusetts (67.4%). KSI was honored to have Mr. Bob Gfeller, Mr. David Csillan, and Dr. Morgan Anderson as well as Dr. Douglas Casa and Dr. William Adams, speak at the press conference. Dr. Adams began the press conference stating the methods used for this project, which included accessing publically available information from state high school associations and legislation. Dr. Casa followed up with information pertaining to the results of the study. Csillan, athletic trainer from New Jersey, provided comments about his continued advocacy for New Jersey to implement best practice standards statewide. Mr. Gfeller spoke on the importance of implementing policies to ensure that no parents need to go through the tragic loss of a child. Dr. Morgan Anderson echoed these comments by stating “We have tragic examples from the past that motivates us daily to make a change.”

The Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine will publish the study with these findings in the September issue. The accepted version of the PDF can be found here.

Change is difficult. There may be states who are not thrilled with these published findings, too. However, these data are the reality of current health and safety policies in high school athletics. This report is dedicated to the parents who have lost, or those parents who have their sons and daughters participating in sport, and it can be the conduit in making sure that your children’s safety are accounted for by the governing organizations. I urge you all to contact your state high school association leaders and legislators to find out if they are 1) aware of where they stand in the ranking and 2) their plans forward for improvement.

Preventing Sudden Death in Sport– CoxHealth Sports Safety Conference

Brad Endres, ATC, CSCS

Assistant Director of Sports Safety Policies

The prevention of sudden death in sports begins well before a catastrophic injury occurs.

It may be true that heroes are made in how they respond when they are needed most. Many stories throughout the country give testament to the life-saving nature of an appropriate and timely response to medical emergencies in sport. While these stories are indeed uplifting, they are often the result of a great amount of effort dedicated to being prepared in the event of an emergency. During their 2017 Sports Medicine Conference, the Sports Medicine team at CoxHealth exemplified the old adage that “practice makes perfect”, and it was truly a sight to behold. This team, led by Dr. Shannon Woods, was a shining example of how to collaborate with multiple health care providers in order to create, implement, and practice “best-practice” policies and procedures intended to promote athlete safety. KSI was invited to travel to Springfield, MO to take part in the Conference, and it was inspiring to witness the rubber meet the road in regards to the practical application of research.

Throughout the two days of the conference, KSI staff led evidence-based educational sessions on exertional heat illnesses. KSI Vice-President of Communication and Education Dr. Yuri Hosokawa started off the conference on Friday morning with an evidence-based presentation about the prevention, recognition, and treatment of exertional heat illnesses. After the presentation, she led the participants through a practical lab session on the “best-practices” of responding to an individual suffering from exertional heat stroke (EHS).  The participants attending the Friday session of the conference included athletic trainers, coaches, sports medicine physicians, EMS personnel, and school administrators from local area high schools, given that these practical skills would be vital for treating one of their athletes in the event they developed EHS while participating in sports. On Friday afternoon, CoxHealth staff led mock emergency scenarios where participants  were able to gain hands-on practice of what they had learned in the morning. The participants took the scenarios seriously, which led to great discussions during the scenario debriefings. Additionally, the local Springfield news station recorded a news segment about the Conference in order to spread the word about emergency preparedness and athlete safety.

On the final day of the conference, the participants included physical therapists, physicians from other specialties, parents of young athletes, and other interested members of the community. Yuri and I geared our presentations to a slightly different audience, but the message was largely the same: evidence-based policies and procedures can indeed save lives.

Yuri and I were thankful to be invited to the 2017 CoxHealth Sports Medicine Conference, and proud to represent KSI at such an impressive collaborative event. Being in compliance with “best practice” emergency response policies is not always the easiest thing to do, but networks like CoxHealth Sports Medicine are proving that it can be done. Because of their efforts, the athletes they serve will undoubtedly be safe and well cared for.

2017 Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Sport

William M. Adams, PhD, LAT, ATC Vice President of Sport Safety

March 28-29, 2017 Kansas City, MO

The 3rd annual Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Sport meeting was held last week in Kansas City, MO that brought over 100 individuals representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia together to continue the task of enhancing the health and safety policies for high school athletics. This meeting, hosted by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine and supported by the Korey Stringer Institute and Gatorade, began out of an idea spawned by Drs. Douglas Casa, PhD, ATC, FACSM, FNATA, FNAK and Jonathan Drezner, MD to make high school sports safer for the participating athletes.

This years’ meeting was constructed so that the attendees decided on the topics to be discussed. Prior to the meeting, all of the attendees were sent a survey that asked them which topics they would either want to learn more about or have in depth discussions about. From the survey, 16 breakout sessions were formed where the attendees who wanted to learn more about one particular topic were able to come together in small groups to have further discussions.

 

Overall, these breakout sessions were immensely successful as they stimulated many fruitful discussions over the successes, barriers, and other strategies to help develop and implement health and safety policies across the US. It was great to see states that have been successful in implementing change in a certain area (i.e. heat acclimatization) providing feedback and suggestions to states that have not been successful in implementing such policies. These discussions provided great peer-to-peer feedback, which may have been better received for some individuals.

 

Having attended all of Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Sport meetings over the past three years, it has been amazing to see the efforts taken by leaders within state high school athletics associations and sports medicine advisory committees following the meeting to develop and implement health and safety policies. States like Vermont, Illinois, South Carolina, Utah, New Jersey and many others have taken advantage of these meetings to implement best-practice policies in their state with many crediting the Collaborative Solutions meeting as the event that was the impetus for change.

 

While many states have made great strides in improving the health and safety of their student athletes, others have remained resistant to change and often citing “We haven’t had anything happen in our state, so there is no reason to change.” We must remember that implementing evidence-based minimum best practice policies such as emergency action plans, heat acclimatization, access to AEDs, environmental-based activity modification guidelines and the management of sport related concussion, cost little to no money to implement and there should be no reason not to take the proactive steps to keeping our young student athletes safe.

 

Keeping the forward progress mindset and further cultivating relationships between sports medicine advisory committees, high school athletics associations and coaches with the mindset of having the most up-to-date evidence-based policies in place is needed to ensure that our young athletes are protected while playing the sports that they love.

Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Florida High School Sports

William Adams, PhD, LAT, ATC

 

On March 9-10, 2017, Drs. Douglas Casa, PhD, ATC, FACSM, FNATA, FNAK and William Adams, PhD, ATC along with KSI staff member Courteney Benjamin, MS, CSCS traveled to the University of Florida to attend their Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Florida High School Sports meeting. Organized by the University of Florida and the Florida Association of Sports Medicine, the aim of the meeting was to begin the steps of health and safety policies for the Florida’s high school student-athletes.

 

The meeting was attended by representatives from various regions within the state of Florida and included sports medicine physicians, athletic trainers, high school administrators, coaches and the Florida High School Athletics Association. Dr. Casa spoke on the importance of implementing evidence-based best practice policies focused on the leading causes of death in sport and provided numerous case examples as to how these policies have been effective at reducing the number of sport-related deaths. Dr. Adams followed by discussing the current standing of health and safety policies mandated for high school athletics in Florida.

 

IMG_0477

 

Following these initial talks, the rest of the meeting consisted of various break out sessions specifically designed to stimulate discussion amongst the group and discuss strategies for how to implement changes to current policies related to emergency action plans, environmental monitoring and activity modification guidelines, concussion, AEDs and coaching education. Discussing the current barriers for implementing the aforementioned policies and strategies to overcome these barriers with the attendees, who many are the state leaders in their respective professions, allowed everyone in the room to participate to assist in developing a plan going forward to present to the Florida High School Athletics Association to further protect their student-athletes.

 

Overall, this meeting was a tremendous success and we are truly thankful for the University of Florida and FASmed for organizing this meeting and for the University of Florida for hosting the meeting at their facilities.  Having a group of highly motivated individuals from across the state of Florida come together to discuss how they can improve high school student-athlete health and safety is a model example of ways other states can have similar successes. The coordinated efforts of sports medicine professionals, high school and state high school athletics association administrators and coaches is instrumental for preventing sudden death in our young athletes who have a full life to live in front of them.

 

IMG_0494

NFL AT Pilot Grant Program

By Yuri Hosokawa, MAT, ATC, Director of Communication, Director of Education

pilot-grant-2

Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut is proud to announce our role in the NFL Athletic Trainer Grant Pilot Program, which is open for applications from October 19, 2016 through December 16, 2016.

 

As part of the Play Smart. Play Safe. campaign the NFL pledged on September 14, 2016, the NFL is heading up a pilot grant program in four states – Arizona, Illinois, Oklahoma and Oregon.  Up to 150 public high schools across the four pilot states will be awarded a $35,000 grant over the course of a 3-year period to assist with securing athletic trainer (AT) services.

 

School administrators, or their designee, may apply if their school meets the following criteria:

  • A public high school with an interscholastic football program in Arizona, Illinois, Oklahoma or Oregon.
  • Minimal or no current athletic training program. Minimal is defined as care provided by an athletic trainer only for football games or competitions played at home.

 

As NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stated in his letter, “… we know that having an athletic trainer on the sidelines at a high school game can be pivotal for how health and safety issues are handled. But many of our nation’s schools lack the resources to pay for one. Accordingly, we plan to expand the size of our athletic trainer program, funding additional athletic trainers for high schools that need them. Our long-term goal is to raise awareness about the important role athletic trainers can play in high school athletics.”

 

KSI will lead the administration of the NFL Athletic Trainer Pilot Grant Program as well as conduct research on the program’s impact, specifically the impact of athletic trainers on student athlete health outcomes. We hope that by bringing our expertise to this program, we can assist not only the schools who may hire ATs for the first time in their school history, but also to serve as the support system for the ATs who are accepting jobs in these schools in order to develop successful and sustainable athletic training programs across the nation.

 pilotgrant

To find out more about the pilot grant program, visit: www.athletictrainergrant.com.

#AT4ALL

The ATLAS Project: The Start of Something Big

By Robert Huggins, PhD, ATC, VP of Research, VP of Athlete Health and Safety

ATLAS UPDATE

There are countless new and innovative ideas that we have at KSI every day, but every once in a while there is that truly life changing idea. Even as daunting as that idea may seem, there is something deep within your gut, I mean really deep down, that you know can make and impact and is worth doing. The ATLAS Project was one of those ideas for us here at KSI and in true KSI fashion this idea would not be possible without the collaboration of the NATA Secondary School Committee and the members of the NATA.

 

The Athletic Training Locations And Services Project was developed by KSI from the “Athletic Training Services in Public Secondary Schools: A Benchmark Study” with the main goals to:

 

  • Create a real-time database of athletic training services in secondary schools
  • Create a directory for each state’s athletic training association and high school athletics association
  • Assist states in moving toward full-time athletic training services
  • Provide useful data to each state’s athletic training association and high school athletic association
  • Identify common factors associated with increased athletic training services across the country
  • Provide data to assist with legislative efforts to improve healthcare for high school athletes

Since its official launch in January, over 4,500 surveys have been taken by Secondary School Athletic Trainers all across the country. The Eastern Athletic Trainers’ Association has the largest percentage of high school athletic trainers who have taken the ATLAS Survey closely followed by Mid-America Mid-Atlantic and Southwest Athletic Training Associations as depicted below. In terms of raw number of surveys California leads with 220 surveys taken and Pennsylvania is in close second with 203 surveys. However, if we look at percentage of surveys taken, District of Columbia, New Mexico, and Utah are in the lead with 80%, 71%, and 55% respectively.

Picture0

Currently KSI uses Zeemapsä by Zeesource to map each states’ Athletic Training services and we are proud to say that Vermont and Maine were the first two states to be 100% mapped. Delaware, District of Columbia, Rhode Island and Wyoming are all within 40 schools of being 100% mapped and additional efforts in those states by KSI and their athletic training associations are being made as we speak.
Picture1   Picture2

Picture3  Picture4

Recently Robert Huggins PhD, LAT, ATC and Larry Cooper, NATA Secondary School Committee Chair, presented the ATLAS project data at the Collaborative Solutions For Safety In Sport Meeting held at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis and will also be discussing this with Athletic Trainers at the NATA Symposium next week in Baltimore where they hope the project will continue to gain more momentum so be sure to stop by booth #2057 at the NATA Expo to map your high school!

2nd Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Sport

By Alicia Pike, Assistant Director of Youth Sport Safety 

IMG_6660

National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) President, Scott Sailor, kicked off the 2nd Collaborative Solutions for Safety in Sport (CSSS) Meeting with a powerful statement. “Nearly all deaths and serious injuries can be avoided when proper steps are taken.” A continuation of last year’s inaugural meeting in New York City, the NATA and American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM), with assistance from the Korey Stringer Institute, brought together each state’s High School Athletic Association Executive Director and Sports Medicine Advisory Committee Chair for the second year in a row to discuss proactive policy changes and states’ progress on various health and safety initiatives at the secondary school level.

IMG_6729 2

On March 22, 2016, Dr. Brian Hainline, Chief Medical Officer of the NCAA, opened the meeting with the keynote address, speaking on the challenges of change. A session followed titled, “Where are we now?” facilitated by Douglas Casa, Robert Huggins, Larry Cooper and Thomas Dompier. This session focused on progress made in policy change, athletic training coverage across the nation, proper injury prevention strategies specific to Heads-Up Football, and an overview of data from the Datalys Center for Sports Injury Research and Prevention. The meeting portion of day one concluded with small group breakout sessions, quite valuable for those in attendance, as they spoke candidly with one another about successes and barriers pertaining to sport safety policy implementation.

IMG_6726 2

Day two began with a keynote address from Martha Lopez-Anderson, Chair of the Board of Directors for Parent Heart Watch. Turning tragedy into triumph, Martha shared her heartbreaking personal story that led to her involvement in this organization, and advocated for the implementation of prevention strategies for sudden cardiac arrest in the youth population, including placing AED’s in all locations, cardiac screening, and getting appropriate personnel trained in CPR/AED use. Following her keynote, a session dedicated to mental health issues in student-athletes ensued. Although not directly in the spotlight, mental health is a true problem. Dr. Brian Hainline stressed the importance of having an emergency action plan in place for mental health issues, similar to the ones implemented to manage various incidents such as cervical spine or head injuries. Alongside Dr. Hainline, John Reynolds, Dr. Cindy Chang, and Dr. Francis O’Connor also facilitated this session. From sharing success stories on the promotion of mental wellness in a school district, to discussions on the prevalence and consequences of disordered eating and performance-enhancing drug use, attendees were informed of proper strategies to take in limiting and managing mental health issues in student-athletes.

Taking a different approach this year, attendees were allowed to choose from three different breakout sessions, providing opportunities to promote discussion in small groups about personal experiences, struggles, and successes with cardiac and heat policy implementation, and employing athletic trainers in secondary schools. This created an environment of close collaboration, with states getting feedback for themselves while simultaneously helping each other. NATA President, Scott Sailor, said it best. “With your [attendees] collaborative support we will make a difference. We will save lives, reduce injuries, and create a playing environment that ensures health and safety first.” It was another incredibly successful CSSS Meeting, and we anticipate the next to result in even greater strides towards improving sport safety in the secondary school setting.

FullSizeRender