Descriptive Report of Injuries Sustained by Secondary School Baseball Players Categorized by Community-Level of Socioeconomic Status.

Context: Baseball is a popular sport in the United States, with widespread play among secondary school student-athletes. Baseball-related injuries may vary based on community-level socioeconomic status of schools.

Objective

To describe the injuries sustained by secondary school baseball players from schools categorized by community-level socioeconomic status.

Design

Cross-sectional study design.

Setting

Data (2014/15-2018/19 academic years) were obtained from the National Athletic Treatment, Injury, and Outcomes Network (NATION-SP)

Participants

Secondary school baseball athletes. Main Outcome Measures: Frequencies and percentages of injuries, injury rates, and competition/practice injury rate ratios (IRR) were reported by the community-level socioeconomic status (ie, affluent, average wealth, disadvantaged) where each school is located.

Results

NATION-SP captured 320 baseball injuries across 140,619 total athlete exposures (AEs), for an overall injury rate of 2.4/1,000 AEs. Of those, 52% occurred among athletes in 24 schools situated in affluent communities, 15.6% occurred in 12 schools from average wealth communities, and 32.5% occurred in 12 schools located in disadvantaged communities. The largest injury rate was schools located in disadvantaged communities (3.3/1000 AE), followed by affluent (2.3/1000 AE) and average wealth (1.4/1000 AE) communities. On average, schools from affluent and disadvantaged communities had higher injury rates during competition than during practice (affluent: IRR=1.5, 95% CI=1.11, 2.05; disadvantaged: IRR=1.6, 95% CI=1.12, 2.41). Frequencies of many injury characteristics were consistent in schools across community-level socioeconomic status with contact, sprain/strain, and non-timeloss ranking highest in terms of injury mechanism, diagnosis, and time loss, respectively. Shoulder/clavicle was most frequent body part injured in schools in average and disadvantaged wealth communities, and ankle was most frequent in schools in affluent communities.

Conclusions

Baseball athletes playing in schools located in disadvantaged wealth communities had the largest overall injury rate, followed by schools in affluent, and average wealth communities. Across most injury characteristics, a consistent trend emerged regardless of community-level disadvantage, with the highest baseball injury rates resulting from contact mechanisms, diagnosed as sprains or strains, and classified as non-time- loss injuries. While many injury patterns are consistent across socioeconomic communities, examining injuries through the lens of community-levels of disadvantage provides insight into subtle differences that could information targeted prevention strategies or resource needs.