ArticleThe American journal of sports medicine2016
Suicide Mortality Among Retired National Football League Players Who Played 5 or More Seasons.
Article in The American journal of sports medicine, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 109 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mental Health in Elite Athletes: A Systematic Review of Suicidal Behaviour as Compared to the General Population.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2024Pooled it
- A systematic review of potential long-term effects of sport-related concussion.British journal of sports medicine · 2017Pooled it
- Neurodegenerative Disease Death Certification Among National Football League Players With Dementia.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Mental health in elite athletes: International Olympic Committee consensus statement (2026).British journal of sports medicine · 2026Article
- Neurodegenerative mortality among National Football League Players.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Performance of traumatic encephalopathy syndrome criteria in identifying individuals with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.Nature medicine · 2026Article
- Clinical Outcomes and Tau Pathology in Retired Football Players: Associations With Diagnosed and Witnessed Sleep Apnea.Neurology. Clinical practice · 2024Article
- Maintenance of brain health: The role of social determinants of health and other non-traditional cardiovascular risks.Cerebral circulation - cognition and behavior · 2024Article
- The association between playing professional American football and longevity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Suicide and depression in former contact sports participants: population-based cohort study, systematic review, and meta-analysis.EClinicalMedicine · 2023Article
- A narrative review of psychiatric features of traumatic encephalopathy syndrome as conceptualized in the 20th century.Frontiers in neurology · 2023Review
- Chronic traumatic encephalopathy neuropathologic change is uncommon in men who played amateur American football.Frontiers in neurology · 2023Article
- Mental Health in Elite Student Athletes: Exploring the Link Between Training Volume and Mental Health Problems in Norwegian College and University Students.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2022Article
- Association of Position Played and Career Duration and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy at Autopsy in Elite Football and Hockey Players.Neurology · 2021Article
- High School Football and Risk for Depression and Suicidality in Adulthood: Findings From a National Longitudinal Study.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Article
- Age of First Exposure to Contact and Collision Sports and Later in Life Brain Health: A Narrative Review.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Review
- Suicide in Older Adult Men Is Not Related to a Personal History of Participation in Football.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Article
- Mental health and suicide in former professional soccer players.Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry · 2020Article
- Impact of Knee Injuries on Post-retirement Pain and Quality of Life: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Professional Basketball Players.HSS journal : the musculoskeletal journal of Hospital for Special Surgery · 2020Article
- Association of Professional Football Cumulative Head Impact Index Scores With All-Cause Mortality Among National Football League Players.JAMA network open · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThere is current disagreement in the scientific literature about the relationship between playing football and suicide risk, particularly among professional players in the National Football League (NFL). While some research indicates players are at high risk of football-related concussions, which may lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy and suicide, other research finds such a connection to be speculative and unsupported by methodologically sound research. PURPOSE: To compare the suicide mortality of a cohort of NFL players to what would be expected in the general population of the United States. STUDY
designCohort study; Level of evidence, 3.
methodsA cohort of 3439 NFL players with at least 5 credited playing seasons between 1959 and 1988 was assembled for statistical analysis. The vital status for this cohort was updated through 2013. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs), the ratio of observed deaths to expected deaths, and 95% CIs were computed for the cohort; 95% CIs that excluded unity were considered statistically significant. For internal comparison purposes, standardized rate ratios were calculated to compare mortality results between players stratified into speed and nonspeed position types.
resultsSuicide among this cohort of professional football players was significantly less than would be expected in comparison with the United States population (SMR = 0.47; 95% CI, 0.24-0.82). There were no significant differences in suicide mortality between speed and nonspeed position players.
conclusionThere is no indication of elevated suicide risk in this cohort of professional football players with 5 or more credited seasons of play. Because of the unique nature of this cohort, these study results may not be applicable to professional football players who played fewer than 5 years or to college or high school players.
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Registered trials
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