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Injuries Declining in High School Sports Football, wrestling and soccer have the most injured athletes (HealthDay News) -- High school athletes are spending less time sidelined by sports injuries than they have in the past. Injury rates for nine popular sports have declined by about 50 percent, according to a study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "A decade ago, injury rates were at least twice as high," the study's lead author, Dawn Comstock, a researcher at Columbus Children's Hospital Center for Injury Research and Policy in Ohio , told HealthDay . "While part of the decrease is due to a different definition of injury, we know that sports-related injury rates are decreasing because of rule changes, improvements in protective gear, and in the diagnosis and treatment of injury," Comstock said. About 75 percent of U.S households have at least one child who plays organized sports, according to Safe Kids USA, part of a global network of groups dedicated to preventing childhood accidents. The study found that more than 7 million high school students are involved in high school sports, compared with just 4 million 25 years ago. Researchers found that 1.4 million injuries occurred among those high school athletes during the 2005-2006 school year. That's roughly 2.4 injuries per 1,000 practices or competitions, according to the study. Every sport studied except volleyball saw a big decline in injuries. The highest injury rate was found in football, with football players being injured nearly twice as often as participants in any other sport -- about 4.36 injuries per 1,000 practices or competitions. Wrestling was the next most likely to cause an injury, with about 2.5 injuries per 1,000 practices or competitions. Boys' soccer was next with 2.43 per 1,000, then girls' soccer with 2.36 per 1,000 and girls' basketball with 2.01 injuries per 1,000 practices or competitions. Boys' basketball, girls' volleyball, boys' baseball and girls' softball all had injury rates of less than 2.0 per 1,000 practices or competitions. The study found that injuries were more likely to occur during competitions than practices. And 80 percent of the injuries were new injuries, rather than recurring ones. "We don't want to make high school sports look dangerous," Comstock added. "They're a really important way for adolescents to incorporate physical activity. Our goal is to try to identify risk factors for injury so we can develop prevention -- so we can keep kids as safe as possible while playing sports." Because most of the injuries were new ones, "they probably are not over-use injuries or it may be because of the sports they looked at," Dr. Michael Kelly, chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and director of Sports Medicine Services at Hackensack University Medical Center , told HealthDay . "If you were to look at track and field or cross country, you would see higher recurrence rates." Kelly said the study's findings also pointed to a need for better injury prevention programs. "There are probably certain things in younger athletes that we've yet to define in terms of training, conditioning and coaching on the prevention side," he said. "We think it's an area where there's probably going to be more and more interest in terms of research and prevention. We've done a pretty good job on identifying, diagnosing and treating, but we may have a ways to go in prevention." On the Web To learn more about preventing sports injuries in children and teens, visit the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. SOURCES: HealthDay News , Michael Kelly, M.D., chairman, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, and director, Sports Medicine Services, Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack, N.J.; Dawn Comstock, Ph.D., research faculty, Columbus Children's Hospital Center for Injury Research and Policy, and assistant professor of pediatrics, Ohio State University College of Medicine; Sept. 29, 2006, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Safe Kids USA (www.usa.safekids.org) Author: Serena Gordon Publication Date: Aug. 31, 2007 Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.