ArticleInjury epidemiology2020
Are high school girls' lacrosse players at increased risk of concussion because they are not allowed to wear the same helmet boys' lacrosse players are required to wear?
Article in Injury epidemiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Incidence and Risk Factors for Sport-Related Concussion in Female Youth Athletes Participating in Contact and Collision Invasion Sports: A Systematic Review.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Pooled it
- Differences in Injury Rates by Competition Level Among Scholastic and Collegiate Female Lacrosse Athletes: A Systematic Review.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2026Review
- Sport-Related Concussions in High School Athletes: A Comprehensive Update.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2025Review
- Headgear mandates in high school girls' lacrosse: investigating differences in impact rates and game play behaviors.Annals of medicine · 2024Article
- Head Impact Kinematics and Brain Tissue Strains in High School Lacrosse.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2024Article
- Concussion Rates in Youth Lacrosse Players and Comparison With Youth American Football.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2024Article
- Headgear use in girls' lacrosse-stakeholders not ready for change.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2024Article
- A Helmet of Her Own?: A Qualitative Study of Key Stakeholder Perspectives on Headgear in Girls' Lacrosse.AJPM focus · 2023Article
- Epidemiology of sport-related concussion rates in female contact/collision sport: a systematic review.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2022Review
- Epidemiology of Injuries in National Collegiate Athletic Association Women's Lacrosse: 2014-2015 Through 2018-2019.Journal of athletic training · 2021Article
- Quantifying head impact exposure, mechanisms and kinematics using instrumented mouthguards in female high school lacrosse.Research in sports medicine (Print)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBoys' lacrosse (LAX), a full contact sport allowing body and stick checking, mandates hard shell helmets with full face masks. Girls' LAX, which prohibits body checking and whose sphere rule is supposed to prevent stick checking to the head, allows optional flexible headgear with/without integrated eye protection. Whether the required boys' LAX helmets should also be mandated in girls' LAX has been debated.
methodsIn this retrospective cohort study we used LAX concussion data from a national high school sports-related injury surveillance study to determine if girls' LAX players were at increased risk of concussion from stick or ball contact due to differences in helmet regulations by calculating the attributable risk and attributable risk percent (AR%) for concussion resulting from ball or stick impacts.
resultsFrom 2008-09 through 2018-19, boys' LAX players sustained 614 concussions during 1,318,278 athletic exposures (AEs) (4.66 per 10,000 AEs) and girls' LAX players sustained 384 concussions during 983,291 AEs (3.91 per 10,000 AEs). For boys, athlete-athlete contact was the most common mechanism of concussion accounting for 66.4% of all concussions, while stick or ball contact accounted for 23.5%. For girls, stick or ball contact accounted for 72.7% of all concussions, while athlete-athlete contact accounted for 19.8%. Concussion rates from stick or ball contact were significantly higher in girls vs. boys (RR = 2.60, 95% CI 2.12-3.18). The attributable risk associated with playing girls' vs. boys' LAX for concussion resulting from stick or ball contact was 1.75 concussions per 10,000 AEs (95% CI 1.37-2.12) and the AR% was 61.5% (95% CI 52.9-68.5). An estimated 44.7% of all girls' LAX concussions could have been prevented if girls' LAX players wore the helmet mandated in boys' LAX.
conclusionsGirls' LAX players who are allowed, but not required, to wear a flexible headgear are at increased risk of concussions from stick or ball impacts compared to boys' LAX players, who are required to wear a hard shell helmet with full face mask. Additional research is needed to determine if there are any defendable arguments to continue justifying restricting girls' LAX players access to this effective piece of protective equipment.
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