The Epidemiology of Children’s Team Sports Injuries

Participation in children’s and youth sports is increasingly popular and widespread in Western culture. Many of these youngsters initiate year-round training and specialization in their sports at a very early age. This is probably due to the ‘catch them young’ philosophy, and to the belief that, to achieve international standing in later sporting life, intensive training should be started before puberty [1]. It is not uncommon, for example, for preteens to train 20 or more hours each week at regional training centers in tennis or gymnastics, to compete in triathlons, or for youngsters as young as 6–8 years of age to play organized hockey or soccer and travel with select teams to other towns and communities to compete against other teams of similar caliber. The first volume of our work on the epidemiology of sports injuries in children dealt with individual sports. Organized team sport has become a feature of sports participation in Western children and adolescents, and, especially at school level, more than one team sport may well be practiced on a regular basis. This second volume concentrates on team sports. In this introductory article, we shall reiterate and expand on the general concepts on sports participation in young athletes already outlined in the first volume, and shall highlight some of the peculiarities of participation in team sports.