Brain Injury Risk in Youth Football

Thayne Munce is associate director of the Sanford Sports Science Institute. He authored a study on brain injury risk in youth football. The studied monitored 22 local youth football players ages 11 to 13 during a single season of 27 practices and 9 games. Each player wore sensors in his helmet which measured head-impact frequency, magnitude, duration and location. More than 6,000 head impacts were recorded, and found to be similar in magnitude and location to those in high school and college football but less frequent.