According to a study published in the February issue of Injury Prevention, of the sports injuries that occurred in United States high schools over a two year period from 2005-2007.estimates that more than 98,000 of those injuries were directly due to an action that was ruled as illegal by a referee, official or disciplinary committee.

The researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital conducted a study that analyzed data from the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 for National High School Sport-Related Injury Surveillance. Through this study nine different common high school sports were included: boys’ football, soccer, basketball, wrestling and baseball and girls’ soccer, volleyball, basketball and softball.

The highest rate of illegal injuries were found for soccer of both sexes. Girls’ volleyball, softball and boys’ baseball had the lowest number of illegal injuries occurring. Interesting, a full 32% of the injuries related to illegal activity were to the head and/or face and 25% were concussions.

Christy Collins, Co-Author of the CIRP study reported,”Our research indicates illegal activity is an overlooked risk factor for sports-related injury and reducing illegal activity through enhanced enforcement of rules and targeted education about the dangers of illegal activity may reduce sports-related injuries.”

By definition, activities that were ruled illegal are not supposed to occur. Thus, injuries attributed to illegal activities should be largely preventable in high school sports.

Dawn Comstock of CIRP and Co-Author of the report commented,”Each sport has a unique set of rules developed to promote fair competition and protect participants from injury, thus, enforcing rules and punishing illegal activity is a risk control measure that may reduce injury rates by modifying players’ behavior.”

This study was funded in part by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and will hopefully open both the eyes of both participants as well as coaches to the dangers of straying outside the rules and keep sports both challenging and safe activities.