IS AUSTRALIAS APPROACH TO INJURY PREVENTION ADEQUATE? Professor - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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IS AUSTRALIA’S APPROACH TO INJURY PREVENTION ADEQUATE?

Professor Caroline Finch

NHMRC Principal Research Fellow School of Hum an Movem ent and Sport Sciences University of Ballarat c.finch@ballarat.edu.au

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FOCUS

• Community sport
• Population-based approaches
• Getting, and keeping, more people involved
• Sports safety rather than injury prevention
• Research perspective
• Evidence-informed policy and practice
• Translation of research knowledge

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TRADI TI ONAL APPROACHES

• The sports injury domain has been

governed by advances in clinical sports medicine (prior to mid 1990’s, mostly since then)

• This has led to a focus on

– improved diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of injuries – elite or high performance athletes – intrinsic risk factors – a focus on individuals

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QUESTI ONS

• Wouldn’t it be better and cheaper to prevent

injuries from occurring in the first place?

• Isn’t sport delivery targeted at community

participants and children, as well as the relatively few elite/ professional athletes?

• Shouldn’t we be concerned about safety for the

very large numbers of community and recreational participants?

• Doesn’t the sports delivery context impact on

safety too?

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CURRENT STATUS

• National Public Health Partnership (2005) – The

National Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion Plan 2004-2014

– no specific mention of sports safety, implied

• No national sport-focused safety policy
• No partnership between lead health and sport

agencies

• No infrastructure for coordination or

implementation efforts

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CURRENT EVI DENCE BASE

• Very little formal evidence that most measures

work

– but equally little evidence that things don’t work

• Largely based on common sense and practice

– does this matter? – can’t we still use this information?

• Best buy for sport and physical activity safety

“risk management plans” (NIPAC, 1999)

• Guidelines/ resources available (e.g. Smartplay)
• How much evidence is enough evidence?

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PREVENTI ON AND RESEARCH LI NK

• To prevent injuries, prevention

measures need to be:

– acceptable – adopted – complied with

• Only research that can be

adopted in practice will prevent injuries

Source: Finch, JSAMS 2006

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NEW RESEARCH FRAMEW ORK

Translating Research (into) I njury Prevention Practice

Source: Finch, JSAMS 2006

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THE TRI PP FRAMEW ORK

TRI PP 1 2 3 4 5 6

I njury surveillance Counting injuries Establish aetiology and m echanism s

• f injury

Injury causes Develop preventive m easures What could be done “I deal conditions”/ scientific evaluation What works Develop im plem entation strategies I m plem entation Evaluate effectiveness of preventive m easures in im plem entation context Prevention

Source: Finch, JSAMS 2006

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AUSTRALI AN PUBLI SHED SPORTS I NJURY RESEARCH ACCORDI NG TO TRI PP STAGES

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 N um be r of pa pe rs TRIPP 1 TRIPP 2 TRIPP 3 TRIPP 4 TRIPP 5 TRIPP 6 TRIPP Stage

2001-2006

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AUSTRALI AN SPORTS I NJURY RESEARCH

5 10 15 20 25 30 35

% of all sport-specific studies

A u s t r a l i a n f

• t

b a l l s q u a s h n e t b a l l c r i c k e t r u g b y u n i

• n

r u g b y l e a g u e s u r f i n g b a s k e t b a l l b

• x

i n g f i e l d h

• c

k e y m i l i t a r y s

• c

c e r t r i a t h l

• n

2001-2006

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CLEAR GAPS AND FUTURE DI RECTI ONS

• Community sport

–

• nly 39% of all research (mostly competitive)
• Children’s sport

–

• nly 12% of all research
• Female sport

–

• nly 10-20% of all research

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W HAT ARE W E DOI NG W ELL?

• Adults
• High performance athletes
• Male dominated sports
• Australian football
• Counting injuries
• Identifying risk factors

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A MAJOR CHALLENGE

INCREASING PARTICIPATION SAFETY PROMOTION

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LI NK SAFETY AND PARTI CI PATI ON PROMOTI ON ACTI VI TI ES

INCREASING PARTICIPATION SAFETY PROMOTION INCREASING PARTICIPATION SAFETY PROMOTION

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POW ER OF I NSURANCE

• Survey of all Victorian LGAs (n= 48

responded)

– 24 had ground checklists (20 of these included CMP-developed guidelines)

• 4 Victorian SSAs

– all used insurance developed match day checklists –

• ne had central storage of records and could

show direct link to injury reductions

Otago et al, 2007

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ENHANCE AND DEVELOP NEW PARTNERSHI PS W I TH THE I NSURANCE I NDUSTRY

• Incentives (cost saving imperatives)
• Can influence safety practice
• Data – for problem identification and

monitoring

• Sport + Insurance + Research

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SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHI PS

• Squash

– VSF + research partnerships since 1996 – identified barriers to PE use and developed and trialled strategy to promote it – Roll-out of program across the State – $5K DHS + $10K SRV + $122K NHMRC

• Australian Football

– AFL Victoria + research partnerships since 2000 – effectiveness of headgear and mouthguards ($176K VicHealth) – identifying game development needs for junior football ($15K SRV, $15K NSWSIC, $40K AFL) – preventing knee injuries ($1,066K NHMRC) – ground conditions ($28K SRV)

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FACI LI TATE REAL-W ORLD SPORTS SAFETY RESEARCH

• Partnerships between sport and

researchers

• Focus on implementation – why will/ will

not something work in practice

• Real-world context for identifying

priorities and prevention

• Translation of research into sporting

practice

• Engagement of researchers with sports

bodies

• Potential for additional funding

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SOME USEFUL W EBLI NKS

• Links to a variety of sports safety resources at

Sports Medicine Australia: http: / / www.sma.org.au/ information/ sportsafe.a sp

• Link to Smartplay:

http: / / www.smartplay.com.au/ national/ Pub/ xpS tart.asp

• Links to recent national sports injury reports:

http: / / www.sma.org.au/ information/ ssdata.asp

• Useful Australian-based sports injury

information website: http: / / www.injuryupdate.com.au/