Abstract
Systematic injury registrations at the child and adolescent level have been performed in recreational sports to gain knowledge on injury risk, as well as on the most common and most severe sport-specific injuries. However, information on injury risk of the young athlete competing in high-level sports seems less available or unknown. This chapter reviews the current knowledge on injury risk in youth and adolescent elite athletes participating in sports represented at the International Olympic Committee-organized Youth Olympic Games. Apart from football, little is known about injury epidemiology among young elite athletes. Compared to summer sports, even fewer surveillance projects have been published for winter sports. Systematic injury surveillance of this highly competitive population is needed to monitor injuries, identify high-risk sports, and ensure new knowledge on injury trends, which can form the basis for further research on injury risk factors, mechanisms, and, in the final step, injury prevention.
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Steffen, K. (2016). Epidemiology of Injury in Elite Youth Sports. In: Caine, D., Purcell, L. (eds) Injury in Pediatric and Adolescent Sports. Contemporary Pediatric and Adolescent Sports Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18141-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18141-7_6
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