Mobility & Injury Statistics: Risk Factors and Outcomes

An average of 8.6 million sports- and recreation-related injury episodes needed medical attention each year in the US in 2011-2014

From the National Health Interview Survey, people aged 5 and over; an age-adjusted rate of 34.1 per 1,000. General exercise was the activity most often involved.

People aged 5-24 accounted for 64.9% of sports and recreation injury episodes, and males for 61.3%

Half of all episodes (50.0%) were treated in a doctor's office or clinic without an emergency visit or hospital stay.

The lower extremity was injured in 42.0% of sports and recreation injury episodes, the upper extremity in 30.3% and the head and neck in 16.4%

Same national survey; the report calls for more research outside emergency departments and hospitals.

Studies put the one-year prevalence of low back pain anywhere from 0.8% to 82.5% (mean 38.1%), and its point prevalence at 1.0-58.1% (mean 18.1%)

Review of the epidemiology; definitions vary so much that the means need caution. Prevalence rises with age until about 60-65.

Recurrence of low back pain within a year ranged from 24% to 80% across studies, and remission at one year from 54% to 90% in clinic-based studies

Most people with activity-limiting back pain go on to have recurrent episodes.

In randomized trials, strength training cut sports injuries to less than a third (risk ratio 0.315); stretching had no effect (0.963)

Meta-analysis of 25 trials with 26,610 participants and 3,464 injuries. Proprioception training gave 0.550 and multi-component programmes 0.655.

Exercise-based prevention programmes reduced acute injuries (risk ratio 0.647) and almost halved overuse injuries (0.527)

Same meta-analysis; intention-to-treat analyses gave even stronger estimates.

Static and PNF stretching had no clear effect on all-cause or overuse injuries; no injury data exist for dynamic stretching

Systematic review of acute stretching. The authors still recommend stretching inside a warm-up that ends with dynamic activity, to reduce muscle injuries and improve range of motion.

A structured neuromuscular warm-up lowered the risk of severe injuries (rate ratio 0.55), overuse injuries (0.47) and injuries overall (0.68) in young female footballers

Cluster randomized trial of 1,892 players aged 13-17 at 125 Norwegian clubs over one season. The primary outcome, lower-extremity injury (0.71), did not reach significance.

Nordic hamstring training cut acute hamstring injuries from 13.1 to 3.8 per 100 player-seasons (rate ratio 0.293)

Cluster randomized trial in 942 Danish professional and amateur soccer players. Recurrent injuries fell from 45.8 to 7.1 per 100 player-seasons; 13 players needed training to prevent one injury.

Women had significantly higher ACL injury rates than men in college soccer and basketball, mostly through non-contact mechanisms

Five years of NCAA Injury Surveillance System data. Proposed causes ranged from strength, movement and skill to joint laxity, alignment and ligament size.

21% of 532 novice runners had a running injury during 13 weeks of training; hip and ankle range of motion did not affect the risk

Prospective cohort preparing for a 6.7 km race. In men, higher BMI (HR 1.15) and an injury in the previous year (HR 2.7) predicted injury.

In 498 middle-aged adults, low back muscular endurance and upper-body strength were associated with back dysfunction and pain (odds ratios 2.9-6.1), while leg flexibility was not

Cross-sectional fitness-test study of Finnish men and women aged 37-57. Leg flexibility in men and trunk and leg flexibility in women were not associated with any health outcome.

A Functional Movement Screen score of 14 or less was linked to 2.74 times the odds of injury

Meta-analysis of nine predictive studies. Reliability was excellent (ICC 0.81), but the authors note significant concerns about the screen's validity.

Young athletes who specialized in one sport had 1.27 times the odds of injury and 1.36 times the odds of serious overuse injury after accounting for age and training hours

Case-control study of 1,190 athletes aged 7-18. Training more hours a week than their age in years doubled the odds of serious overuse injury (OR 2.07).

In elite cricket fast bowlers, an acute:chronic workload ratio of 1.5 or more brought a 2-4 times greater injury risk over the next 7 days

A 2020 analysis (Impellizzeri et al.) found no evidence supporting the ratio for injury-reduction recommendations, so treat the thresholds as contested; rapid load spikes still warrant caution.