Burden of Sport Injuries in the European Union - Safety in Sports

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11 | February 2012
high risk sports. Proper guidance of citizens, who are primly interested in maintaining
and improving their health, need better evidence in this respect.
11.4 Facilitate the assessing the exposure related injury risk at EU level
The European health statistics can provide the general frame for guiding policy actions,
but lack the basis for the calculation of risk related to the number of active participants,
hours of exposure, or intensity of the activity. It is desired and recommended,
that at least the number of active participants in the various sports are surveyed
in EU Member States. This should be a theme of one Euro-Barometer-study.
11.5 Implement injury monitoring in sports clubs and federation
Most sports depend on specific services, provided either by not-for-profit clubs (e.g.
in team sports) or by commercial service providers (e.g. in athletics or skiing). It is
clear that these institutions providing facilities, equipment, instructions have an important
responsibility also for the safety of the members or costumers. In most cases,
these service providers have the best knowledge and the best opportunities for reducing
the injury risk, by guiding their costumers, by offering safe facilities and
equipment, by obeying the rules, by offering appropriate training. Sport clubs and
federations are invited to make better use of these opportunities. Data on injuries in
their domain of responsibility seem to be pre-requisite, but are obviously not available
as a matter of routine. Here the same principle is valid as for policy maker at EU
as well as at national level: Without valid data, comparable over the time, no monitoring
of the developments is possible, without information about the external causes
and circumstances no appropriate measures can be developed, without information
about types of injuries and dominantly affected persons no targeted prevention is
possible. Sport clubs and their federations at national as well as at European level are
invited to establish meaningful injury statistics for their own purposes.
11.6 Facilitate risk management of sport clubs and federations
In order to facilitate further investments into monitoring of sport injuries and the development,
test and implementation of safety management schemes in organized
sport, the national sport ministries are invited to make better use of available funding
opportunities. In probably all European countries governmental subsidies are provided
to clubs and federations for promoting sporting activities. The framework of
funding can be modified in order to enhance injury control in sport clubs. The minis-