Injury incidence in NCAA women's sports during 2019/20-2021/22: findings from injury surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women's sport programs feature elite-level athletes operating under high-performance demands. We describe the epidemiology of injuries in NCAA women's sports during 2019/20-2021/22. We characterized injury frequencies and distributions by sport, event type, body part, diagnosis, and mechanism of injury. Using a Bayesian negative binomial modeling framework, we estimated injury incidence rates and evaluated differential incidence across sport, event type, NCAA division, and academic year. A total of 10,417 injuries were reported across the study period; injuries to the lower leg and foot accounted for 29.6% of all injuries. The posterior mean overall injury rate was 5.2 per 1,000 AEs (95% CrI: [4.7, 5.3]), and overall injury incidence was estimated to be highest in gymnastics (posterior mean rate = 7.9; 95% CrI: [3.8, 14.1]). Our results indicate that the nature of injuries sustained by NCAA women athletes remains tethered to sport-specific gameplay dynamics.