A new University of Michigan study found an increase in the percentage of adolescents reporting concussions.
The study looked at 50,000 eighth, tenth and twelfth graders between 2016 and 2020. 19.5% of those students reported concussions in 2016. In 2020, 24.6% reported concussions.
A higher percentage of boys reported having concussions, but self-reported concussion rates among boys and girls increased at approximately the same rate during the study.
“We found self-reported concussions could be increasing given that both children and parents have greater knowledge with respect to these injuries,” says Philip Veliz, a researcher in the U of M School of Nursing and one of the authors of the study. “The other thing that could be happening is that maybe the incidence of concussion might also just be increasing.”
The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
