This study, reported in the journal Pediatrics, describes the epidemiology of concussions in 20 high school sports during the 2013–2014 to 2017–2018 school years. Overall, 9542 concussions were reported for an overall rate of 4.17 per 10,000 Athletic Exposures. Football had the highest concussion rate (10.40 per 10,000 AEs) followed by girls soccer with 8.19 concussions. Boy soccer players had a much lower rate of 3.57. Across the study period, football competition-related concussion rates increased (33.19 to 39.07 per 10 000 AEs); practice-related concussion rates decreased (5.47 to 4.44 per 10 000 AEs).
Among sex-comparable sports, concussion rates were higher in girls than in boys (3.35 vs 1.51 per 10,000 AEs; injury rate ratio = 2.22). Also, among sex-comparable sports, girls had larger proportions of concussions that were recurrent than boys did (9.3% vs 6.4%; injury proportion ratio = 1.44).