GOING DEEP: Dawn Comstock's high school sports injury survey data indicates need for field hockey eye protection

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on October 09, 2011 at 8:22 AM, updated October 09, 2011 at 10:24 AM

pn_20110504195203-6.jpgCheyenne Rodriguez (left) and Sonya Torres (in goal) play both field hockey and lacrosse for Hershey. Dr. Dawn Comstock compared statistics from lacrosse when trying to determine if the addition of goggles to high school field hockey might cause a spike in injuries.

Dr. Dawn Comstock cautions against using any of the data from her National High School Sports Related Injury Surveillance Study as the single driving force behind policy decisions, but recommends that her data be used to guide discussions during the decision making process.

In the case of goggles in field hockey, Comstock said she evaluated the data to address three of the main issues the field hockey community brought up as reasons why they didn't think eye protection was necessary in the sport.

Reason 1:

"They said the protective eyewear on the market right now inhibits lateral vision – so players can't look down at the field as easily, and if the girls wore eyewear, they would have to drop chins and lower their heads to see the ball more, and this would lead to more player-to-player collisions."

What the data showed:

"We have a convenience sample of schools that report data – and there's a pretty even distribution of schools in states that already mandated eye protection, and schools in states that did not. We were able to compare reports from schools that did and didn't require eyewear. When we did that, there was no significant difference at all in number or rate of player to player contact injuries."

Reason 2: "Girls lacrosse players should wear eyewear because the game is played near the head. Field hockey is played low to the ground. So the players are not as at much risk of eye/head injury as girls' lacrosse players."

What the data showed:

"We looked at our data covering girls lacrosse versus our data covering girls field hockey. We found that the number of injuries to the eyes, head and face were very similar between lacrosse and field hockey. So the arguments that lacrosse players are at higher risk of being struck in head and face than field hockey players is not true in the numbers from our data."

Reason 3: Eyewear is unnecessary because "Field hockey is played on the ground, and the rules of the sport prohibit players from raising the stick high enough to strike another player."

What the data showed: "We compared field hockey to girls' lacrosse and found that there's a higher proportion of injuries to the eye/head/face region in girls' field hockey due to player-apparatus contact than there is in girls' lacrosse. That means more of those injuries in girls' field hockey occur from contact with ball or stick than they do in lacrosse due to contact with the ball or the crosse."