Observational studyPloS one2020
The association between adolescent football participation and early adulthood depression.
Observational study in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Types of leisure-time physical activity participation in childhood and adolescence, and physical activity behaviours and health outcomes in adulthood: a systematic review.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Mental health in elite athletes: International Olympic Committee consensus statement (2026).British journal of sports medicine · 2026Article
- Long-term neurobehavioral and neuroimaging outcomes in athletes with prior concussion(s) and head impact exposure.The Clinical neuropsychologist · 2025Review
- Association of traditional leisure time activities during adolescence to later psychiatric morbidity in early adulthood - a systematic review.Scandinavian journal of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychology · 2025Review
- Social Support, Stress, and Mental Health: Examining the Stress-Buffering Hypothesis in Adolescent Football Athletes.Journal of athletic training · 2024Article
- Associations between repetitive head impact exposure and midlife mental health wellbeing in former amateur athletes.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- The association between playing professional American football and longevity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Contact or Collision Sport History, Repetitive Neurotrauma, and Patient-Reported Outcomes in Early to Midadulthood.Journal of athletic training · 2023Article
- A narrative review of psychiatric features of traumatic encephalopathy syndrome as conceptualized in the 20th century.Frontiers in neurology · 2023Review
- Disparate Associations of Years of Football Participation and a Metric of Head Impact Exposure with Neurobehavioral Outcomes in Former Collegiate Football Players.Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS · 2022Article
- Participation in Collision Sports and Cognitive Aging Among Swedish Twins.American journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
- High School Football and Risk for Depression and Suicidality in Adulthood: Findings From a National Longitudinal Study.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Article
- Suicide in Older Adult Men Is Not Related to a Personal History of Participation in Football.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
- Age of First Exposure to Football Is Not Associated With Later-in-Life Cognitive or Mental Health Problems.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Concerned about potentially increased risk of neurodegenerative disease, several health professionals and policy makers have proposed limiting or banning youth participation in American-style tackle football. Given the large affected population (over 1 million boys play high school football annually), careful estimation of the long-term health effects of playing football is necessary for developing effective public health policy. Unfortunately, existing attempts to estimate these effects tend not to generalize to current participants because they either studied a much older cohort or, more seriously, failed to account for potential confounding. We leverage data from a nationally representative cohort of American men who were in grades 7-12 in the 1994-95 school year to estimate the effect of playing football in adolescent on depression in early adulthood. We control for several potential confounders related to subjects' health, behavior, educational experience, family background, and family health history through matching and regression adjustment. We found no evidence of even a small harmful effect of football participation on scores on a version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D) nor did we find evidence of adverse associations with several secondary outcomes including anxiety disorder diagnosis or alcohol dependence in early adulthood. For men who were in grades 7-12 in the 1994-95 school year, participating or intending to participate in school football does not appear to be a major risk factor for early adulthood depression.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.