More women and playing sports—and that means more sports injuries

With more women and girls playing sports, there’s been a corresponding rise in injuries that can end participation.That’s the consensus of 109 researchers, including three from the University of Calgary, who have made 56 recommendations for injury prevention specific to women and girls.“Globally, sport participation rates among female, women and girl athletes are increasing exponentially, and so too are the injury and concussion rates,” said Carolyn Emery, who co-led the group funded by the International Olympic Committee.“Historically, prevention efforts have been largely in male and elite athlete population, and so there was just a huge gap here.”Women’s sport has surged in Canada with the recent launches of the Professional Women’s Hockey League and soccer’s Northern Super League, plus Canada’s women reaching the final of the Rugby World Cup. The WNBA arrives in Canada next year with the Toronto Tempo.“Those playing at that high level, they’re survivors,” Emery said. “They managed to survive their sporting career at a younger age. We know the No. 1 dropout factor is injury. We want to have solutions to really prevent that injury from happening in the first place.”Female hockey registration in Canada has risen year over year to 114,000 in 2024-25. Hockey Canada’s goal is 170,000 by 2030.But a Hockey Canada steering committee stated in a discussion paper last year that “limited and inconsistent injury prevention education designed specifically for girls playing hockey has led to fewer girls staying in hockey, and sport in general.”The consensus paper’s recommendations range from the need for equitable funding and resources when it comes to injury surveillance and trained medical staff, to creating safe spaces free from body shaming or promoting ideal body types, to mandatory neuromuscular warm-ups to prevent first and recurring injuries.“For years, females have been under-represented (in sports) and under-represented in sports science research,” said Calgary researcher Emily Heming. “We know that there are differences in how injuries happen, how they’re managed, and the support available to these women and girl athletes.“We’re seeing girls and women take up sport in greater numbers. It’s time for the research and prevention strategies to rise to meet them.”The Rally Report published by Canadian Women and Sport in 2024 stated girls’ dropout rates increase at age 16, and accelerate through late teens, with more than one in five leaving sport. “Absolutely injury shows up as a reason that girls are dropping out of sport,” said CWS chief executive officer Allison Sandmeyer-Graves. “While we might say that could also be true of boys, when you pair that with the fact that there has been so little research done on girls and women’s injury prevention in sport, it speaks to the conscious and unconscious bias that still exists in this space and the opportunity to make some really positive progress.”Physical differences between males and females aside, women and girls often operate in different sport environments than men and boys, said Carly McKay, who also co-authored the consensus paper and is an associate professor at the university’s Cumming School of Medicine.“We know that in a lot of settings, women’s teams aren’t as well resourced, they don’t have access to the same funding, the same training facilities, the same expertise, or even the developmental opportunities that the men’s teams tend to have,” she explained. “So not only can we not just take data from men and boys and assume that it applies to girls and women because it doesn’t, but the context in which we are trying to apply that evidence isn’t the same either. “We can suggest that doing strength training programs will reduce the risk of lower-extremity injury. That’s all well and good, but if our female athletes don’t have the same access to gym equipment or safe access to gym facilities, making a recommendation to use strength training isn’t going to help them.”There are almost 270,000 women and girls playing soccer in Canada.Studies have linked anterior cruciate ligament tears in female athletes to menstrual cycles. The world governing body of soccer, FIFA, has funded a study by Kingston University in England to investigate whether menstrual cycles have contributed to more catastrophic knee injuries in women’s soccer.“We’ve known for a very long time that female athletes are at multiple-fold greater risk of ACL injury, depending on which sport you’re talking about, than their male counterparts,” Emery said.“We know that a significant proportion of females who have had an ACL injury or even a meniscal injury, any type of internal joint injury, are at a higher risk of post-traumatic osteoarthritis.”Studies have also stated that female athletes are concussed at higher rates—or have a higher risk of concussion—than males in collision sports. “In youth rugby, there are the same policies, the same tackling in the sport, and we know that rates of concussion are significantly higher on the girls’ side of the game,” Emery said. “Do we understand all the risk factors for that? Probably not, but what we do understand is that there’s solutions.“So thinking about prevention strategies related to tackle training, neuromuscular training in warm-ups, to potentially a change of the height of the tackle in games, may together support a reduction in concussions.”

More women and playing sports—and that means more sports injuries

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