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Sport and Recreation-related Concussions and Other Traumatic Brain Injuries Among Canada's Children and Youth Published: ()

Sports and recreational activities have many social and health benefits and are therefore an important part of the lives of many children and youth in Canada.It's also important to play smart and play safe to minimize the risk of injury.

Concussions and other traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are more common in some sports and recreation-related activities than others, and can range from mild to severe. A concussion is a form of mild traumatic brain injury, and usually happens because of a hit to the head, neck, face or another part of the body, causing the brain to move inside the skull and become injuredFootnote 1. The short- and long-term consequences of concussion and other TBI can be severe — especially for children and youth — although concussion signs and symptoms usually resolve within 10 days to four weeks, and children and youth often take longer to recover than adults Footnote 1.


Dive into the Data

What do the graphs and tables show?

These tools are interactive snapshots of statistics about sports and recreation-related concussions and other TBIs among Canada's children and youth aged 5 to 19 years. The information is from the electronic database of the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (eCHIRPP) for the years 2011 to 2017.

The bar graph shows sports and recreation-related TBIs compared to all other injuries for your selected age group and sex. Use the "Switch to" button to toggle between the number of TBIs and the percentage of TBIs. Hover-over or tab to a specific sport/activity in the interactive bar graph to view more information.

The bee swarm graph shows the percentage (%) of concussions and other TBIs for your selected age group and sex, compared to all sports and recreation-related injuries among all age groups and both sexes combined, i.e. how your selection fits into the "bigger picture".

Use the drop-down lists to change the graphs to look at:

  • Results for specific age groups
  • Results for males vs. females

The data tables show:

  • The data that were used to create the bar graph and bee swarm
  • The breakdown of all TBIs in two subcategories: concussions and non-concussion TBIs

Traumatic brain injuries compared to all injuries in a given sport among aged (eCHIRPP, 2011-2017)

TBIs account for 43.4% of ice hockey incidents reported to eCHIRPP (or 630 injuries) among males aged 5 to 9.


Data tables with concussion breakdown

The tables below contain all of the data in the beeswarm and bar graph. They also include a breakdown of all traumatic brain injuries in two subcategories: concussions and other TBI's.

Table 1. Number and percentage of sports and recreation-related concussions and other TBIs, males aged 5 to 9 years, eCHIRPP, 2011 to 2017

Results Highlights

Take Note

How were these statistics calculated?

The percentage (% ) of concussions and other TBIs among all injuries for a given SPAR-related activity is calculated like this:

( Number of concussions* and other TBIs** for a given sports and recreation-related activity Number of all injuries for a given sports and recreation-related activity ) × 100

Limitations

The results presented above should be interpreted with caution as they do not represent all sports and recreation-related injuries in Canada. CHIRPP is a sentinel surveillance system and collects data from select emergency departments across Canada. Teenagers older than 18 years of age, Aboriginal persons and people who live in rural areas may be under-represented in the eCHIRPP database, as most CHIRPP sites are paediatric hospitals located in major cities. Fatal injuries are also under-represented in the eCHIRPP database because the emergency department data do not capture people who died before they could be taken to hospital or those who died after being admitted via another department. Information is continuously being entered into the eCHIRPP database; therefore some years do not yet have complete data.

More information and related material


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