DALLAS – The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center is teaming with the University Interscholastic League to track injuries, particularly concussions, to student athletes.

The University Interscholastic League, the governing body for high school sports, partnered with the medical center’s O’Donnell Brain Institute to track injuries to student athletes in two dozen sports – from girls soccer to football – through an online data system that records the injury, recovery time and other data, KCEN reports.

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“Until we understand the frequency of concussions … across the state, or a region of the state, we can’t determine when rule changes, equipment changes or things like recovery programs are really being effective,” said Dr. Monro Cullum, a professor of psychiatry, neurology and neurotherapeutics.

The UIL is asking officials at its 1,400 member schools to report all head injuries to the central database starting in the current school year.

According to an editorial in The Dallas Morning News:

UIL officials believe this effort will be the largest in the nation to track such injuries. And while it goes farther than the state has gone before, schools are participating on a volunteer basis this year with UIL plans to expand reporting for the next school year. …

Last football season, sample reporting at 227 of UIL’s 1,420 member schools revealed 1.5 concussion per school, or 340 concussions across the state.

An independent Dallas Morning News study showed 133 schools in the Dallas area alone had 8.1 concussions per school, or 1,079 concussions among football players.

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KXXV reports that athletic trainers and coaches at each school will have access to enter injuries through a smartphone app, or website on a weekly basis, and researchers will compile the data with a focus on improving safeguards for student athletes.

“All of those scientific findings from a world-class science institution will help inform policy decisions as we move forward in all of our sports,” UIL Deputy Director Jamey Harrison said.

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Texas, however, isn’t the first state to track injuries from school sports.

Michigan requires schools to report concussions, and a recent study showed 755 schools reported 4,452 head injuries last school year, with football topping the list at 1,907 injuries followed by girls’ basketball, with 454, Fox News reports.

All states have rules or laws addressing concussion for young athletes, a problem the Centers for Disease Control estimates at 3.8 million concussions per year in sports and recreational activities. The CDC is seeking federal funding to establish a database to track the issue similar to what Texas is implementing, according to the news site.

Texas currently has more than 800,000 public high school athletes, but only a fraction are covered through voluntary injury reports.

“Right now it’s a sample that is just a snapshot. It’s not scientific,” UIL’s Harrison said. “We need to move beyond that.”