For discussion of women's soccer equality, let's talk about concussion

After taking a ball to the head estimated to be travelling at 60 miles per hour in the last minute of a tie match in April of 2013, Abby Wambach, of the Western New York Flash, "collapsed lifelessly and rolled into the fetal position." She grabbed her head and remained on the ground for 31 seconds. "Wambach stood, took two off-balance steps, and play resumed," Slate reported. She played several extra minutes and headed the ball once more on the final play of the game. When the whistle blew, she fell to her knees. "Wambach needed help getting off the field," Slate continued. Eleven days later, the National Women’s Soccer League admitted that Wambach’s injury "wasn’t handled as we should have handled it."

As we watch the Women’s World Cup and the sheer athleticism of these elite female players, what we don’t see is the lagging research on concussion injury in girl’s and women’s soccer. The rate of concussion among female soccer players has been called an unpublicized epidemic. Perhaps it’s because we don’t realize the alarming incidence of concussion in girls and women’s soccer, still stuck on the outdated belief that most concussions happen in football or men’s ice hockey. Perhaps because concussion in men is the primary focus of the media, the Boston brain bank and CTE headlines. Perhaps because until just recently, federally funded research had no mandate to include women in their recruitment plans.

But the truth is, concussion in girls and women’s soccer equals or exceeds the incidence rate of football and other men's sports in a number of high school and college studies, and this phenomenon has been reported for more than a decade! A Northwestern study found that female high school soccer players sustain a concussion at three times the rate of male players. An NCAA study, led by Zuckerman, found that after football, women’s soccer had the largest estimate of concussion with more than 1100 annually and a recent review found just 7% of 221 published papers on concussion examined data by sex. Furthermore, the public needs to know that concussions in females produce symptoms that are greater in number and severity, take longer to recover, and result in worse outcomes than males. Female athletes deserve to be included in the conversation and in the research, not just as post-hoc analysis.

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Of all sports, soccer is one of the most popular for women and girls. At the youth level, about 2 million girls and young women play soccer annually, more than 390,000 participate in high school, with numbers approaching 28,000 at the collegiate level. Many more play soccer as adults. For girls and women, the benefits of participation in team sports results in better mental health, increased confidence, improved self-image and overall physical well being, growth of leadership skills, and a greater interest in community and political leadership. I witnessed these benefits in my own daughter who played soccer through college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and played alongside Rose Lavelle, who many call the most impressive new addition to the U.S. Women's National Team. I also saw my daughter and her teammates injured, often with concussion.

Despite the concussion spotlight on male athletes, some long-awaited large-scale progress seems to be unfolding, at least at the collegiate level. But the results, much less solutions, can’t come quick enough. In one large scale study, approximately 3300 concussed collegiate athletes and military cadets have been examined, 40% of them females, including data from my own daughter’s concussion. These findings will be important to girls and women who play soccer and to all of us as parents, clinicians, and scientists.

In 2016, Wambach, declared her intention to donate her brain to science, saying “The only thing I can do at this point to give back to the world and help give more information, so our young kids and their parents can make better decisions about their brain health,”

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Wambach, regarded as one of the most prolific players to use her head to score goals, scored 77, of the record 184 goals, with her head. The USWNT deserves more than equal pay. They deserve equal scientific attention and media coverage directed expressly toward prevention and recognition of concussion, clinical management, and focused efforts to reduce concussion’s effects in female soccer players.

Traci Snedden, an assistant professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focuses her research on the effects of child and adolescent concussion, sports safety, injury prevention and overall student health and well-being. Follow her on Twitter:

Source: USA Today

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