Fewer high school athletes play football amid concussion fears

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By Lisa Rapaport

(Reuters Health) – Participation in high school football has been steadily falling in recent years amid mounting concerns about the potential for traumatic brain injuries to lead to lasting health problems, a U.S. study suggests.

Overall, participation in high school sports has surged from less than 4 million student athletes in 2001 to almost 4.6 million last year, researchers report in Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics. But participation in football peaked in 2008 at 1.11 million athletes, and then declined almost 5 percent to 1.06 million players by 2017.

“This decline is associated with media attention focused on concussions or brain injuries among football players,” said study co-author Dr. Chris Feudtner of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

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