ArticleAnnals of work exposures and health2026
Reliability of self-reported career histories reported by former professional association football players included in the health and ageing data iN the game of football (HEADING) study.
Article in Annals of work exposures and health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimTo assess the ability of former professional association football players in England to recall their playing careers.
methodsSelf-reported data regarding playing careers were available from former professional football players participating in the Health and Ageing Data IN the Game of football (HEADING) study. We compared the self-reported data from 141 participants regarding the teams, positions, periods, and leagues they played for against the data available in publicly available records, compiled with the assistance of the English Professional Footballers' Association.
resultsSelf-reporting of career histories occurred a mean of 28.5 years since the players had their last competitive season. Overall, 20 discrepancies between self-reported and register-based data were observed in the career histories of 18 (12.8%) individual players. This is in line with data from earlier reliability studies on the self-reporting of occupational histories. The most common error observed was incorrect recording of years of play in certain clubs, occurring in 9 instances. Missing teams in self-reports were observed in another 8 cases.
conclusionThe results suggest that former professional association football players can provide plausible information over long periods regarding the general characteristics of their professional career. This information could form the basis for a reliable exposure assessment within epidemiological analyses. Further work is required to assess recall of the amount of heading and other head impacts during training and play.
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.