AUTHORS: Dani Gonzalez, Zachary Weatherford, Nicholas Bettencourt, Tyler Wilps, Hannah
Wellington, Emmanuel Elijah, Allison Pastor, Amy Leu, Samuel Galloway, Matthew Kritz,
Andrew McCulloch, Samuel Ward
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA

PURPOSE: To compare the incidence of injury/illness between genders and across collegiate
sports.
METHODS: Injury reports from the 2012-2013 academic year to the 2021-2022 academic year
were compiled for 23 collegiate sports over a 10-year period (12 men’s and 11 women’s teams).
Injuries were included if: 1) they were a new event, and 2) required intervention from athletic
trainers or medical staff. Repeated interventions for the same injury were excluded. Data were
subset by gender, sport, and general anatomic location. Incidence was calculated by
normalizing absolute injury numbers by the number of athletes per team, and these values were
also compared to reported training and competition hours for each sport. 
RESULTS: A total of 5296 participants were included in this study, with a total of 6,160 injuries
reported. Of these reported injuries, 3082 (50.03%) were sustained by female athletes and 3078
(49.97%) by male athletes. When injury numbers were normalized by the number of athletes on
the team, no statistical difference was seen between injury rates on men’s and women’s teams
of like sports. Across all sports, injury rates were between 0.38-1.61 injuries per athlete per
year, with both Women’s (0.61 ± 0.38) and Men’s Cross Country (0.38 ± 0.23) having the lowest
injury rates and Women’s Basketball (1.58 ± 0.33) and Men’s Volleyball (1.61 ± 0.29) having the
highest. Across all sports, increases in injury incidence occurred consistently at the start of the
academic year (August-October) and at the start of competition which varies by team. Similar
breakdowns of injuries by body area were seen in the men’s and women’s sports with Lower
Extremity injuries being the most prevalent in both groups (W: 44.0 ± 5.7%, M: 39.4 ± 4.3%),
followed by Trunk (W: 22.5 ± 2.8%, M: 23.2 ± 3.2%), Upper Extremity (W: 19.5 ± 3.7%, M: 23.8
± 2.4%), Head (W: 8.4 ± 1.9%, M: 8.7 ± 1.6%), Spine (W: 4.5 ± 1.2%, M: 4.1 ± 1.3%), and Other
(W: 1.0 ± 0.8%, M: 0.8 ± 0.5%).
CONCLUSION: Across all sports, injury incidence spikes occurred at the beginning of the
training season and competition season. Injury rates and locations were remarkably similar
between the men’s and women’s teams of corresponding sports. Future interventions focusing
on modulating training volumes and intensities at the beginning of the academic year could
have a dramatic effect on overall injury rates.

The video of this presentation is available here.