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

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2 | February 2012
tunities to reduce these risks effectively. It is well established that physical activity (at
least within a wide range of intensity) contributes to health and well-being and its
promotion can be an effective strategy for fighting obesity, diabetes, diseases of the
cardio-vascular system etc. From a public health point of view, it is desired that all
people practice physical exercise with appropriate intensity and that simultaneously
the risks of unwanted side effect of injuries is reduced to a minimum. The two public
health strategies of promotion physical activities and promoting safety are not well
interconnected yet, and frequently the respective policies do not refer well to each
other.
In spite of the mandate of the treaty for “protecting the physical integrity of sportspersons”
it seems as if policy makers, in particular in the area of sport are not fully
aware of the decrementing effect of injury as well as of the opportunities to meet this
challenge. In fact, in European sport policy documents and decisions “injuries” are
hardly mentioned as a challenge. The European Commission’s White Paper on Sport
(Commission 2007a), which actually serves as a strategic document for setting up a
European sport programme, does not mention sport injury at all, while e.g. violence
and doping are well recognized as unwanted side-effects and detrimental phenomena
which need to be tackled. Only in the accompanying Commission’s working document
(Commission 2007b) sport-related injuries are mentioned but only as “potentially
negative health effects of sport” which “have to be avoided through proper education
and information”. It has to be questioned how injury can be considered as a
just “potentially” negative phenomenon. Per definition, injury is a bodily damage
creating a loss in terms of well-being and productivity e.g. due to sick-leave and
medical costs for treatment and rehabilitation. Only very minor injuries like sore
muscles could be considered as positive as necessary for achieving training effects. In
principle, it is only the sporting activity itself which can produce positive effects, e.g.
in terms of sportive success, entertainment or health, but never an injury. When exercising,
injuries may be unavoidable to a certain extent, but this does not transform
them into a positive phenomenon.
There is another superficiality in the quoted sentence: Education and information
(the so called “active strategies” of prevention) play an important role in injury prevention,
but in general, there are other, and in most cases even more effective prevention
strategies available like proper training, safe sporting grounds or the use of
protective equipment (the so called “passive strategies”). The quoted reference to
“education and information” seems to illustrate a shortcoming of the current understanding
of the origin of sport injuries: The proclivity to attribute the responsibility
for safety to sportswomen and sportsmen, who just need to be informed about how
to behave, or to institutions which are seen as responsible for education and information
as schools and health promotion agencies. This focus, although justified in
many respects, ignores the importance of “passive” safety strategies and underesti-