The lecture will explore injury surveillance and sports injuries research over the past 25 years. It will discuss the early investigations into rugby league injuries in the 1990s. The continued injury surveillance allowed research questions to be addressed long after the initial reason for the research had been consigned to history. Continued surveillance allowed the investigation of many other research questions, long after the original reasons for the research had been consigned to history. The direct result of this research was the full description of players’ injury profiles, the analysis of the increased injury risk when the game was moved to the summer, and a change in the bye laws regarding stoppages in play for hydration of players were.
Since that time, the skills have transferred to research in other sports, and investigated the injury profile of sports such as hurling, Gaelic football, rugby union, tennis and rowing. The research has employed several research strategies ranging from simple descriptive studies through to systematic reviews and pooled data analyses.
More recently, focus has switched to the major public health concern of sports related concussion. The prospective problems that concussion displays in both the short and longer term are astonishing. It is an area that needs investigation regarding prevention, treatment plans and long term effects. The experience, symptoms and sequelae is likely to differ between sports across and age groups.