NYTimes: Girls more vulnerable than boys to concussions during school sports

Published: October 2, 2007, 11:25 am

The NYTimes plays on the front page today a story by Alan Schwarz with disturbing news for girls (and for their parents) who play soccer, basketball, and other high-velocity sports. Not only do they get more concussions than do boys in the same sports, but the symptoms clear more slowly. The study, organized at Ohio State University, is to appear in the Journal of Athletic Training. It draws on data from 425 certified athletic trainers around the country, it says here. Schwarz starts off with a vignette of one soccer player who has had three concussions and, she says, used to think the injuries were “a boy thing.” Boys still get a higher absolute number, but that’s because of football. The difference in rates are not at all trivial, either. The study found concussions reported three times more often in girls and in boys who play basketball. A natural question is whether girls might be more likely to report such injury. Schwarz gets into that and suggests that’s

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