New initiative puts youth voices at centre of concussion research

One in nine Canadian youth aged 14 to 19 will sustain a sport-related concussion this year. Worse, about 30 per cent will experience symptoms lasting months.

Under a new initiative, two existing Canadian concussion research programs — including one led by Dr. Carolyn Emery, MSc’99, PhD, in the Faculty of Kinesiology at UCalgary — will merge to form an innovative cross-country team focused on reducing the burden of youth concussions and their consequences.

What makes the initiative unique is that young people will be co-developing and co-designing the prevention strategies and educational resources. These will be adapted by youth for context-specific equity-deserving youth communities. 

Emery says, “For too long, equity-deserving youth communities have not been optimally considered in youth concussion prevention and management research.”

“This youth-centred research team will address these gaps in a meaningful way by co-developing and evaluating sustainable concussion prevention and management solutions to reduce the public health burden of concussion for all Canadian youth,” Emery adds.

Building capacity amongst Canadian youth

Youth voices will be central to the new project’s success, as was done recently by the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre (SIPRC) in the Faculty of Kinesiology.

At the heart of the initiative is a team grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research: Health Youth. The grant creates a new team called You-CAN SHRed Concussions. The team brings together two unique programs, intersecting to deliver a single five-year pan-Canadian research project.

One existing program is the pan-Canadian SHRed Concussions program (Surveillance in High School and Community Sport to REDuce Concussions and their Consequences) led by UCalgary’s Emery, chair of SIPRC. The second program is the You-CAN (Youth Concussion Awareness Network) led by Dr. Nick Reed, PhD, at the University of Toronto that has empowered Canadian youth to design and deliver concussion education through a peer-led program.

The goal of You-CAN SHRed Concussions will be to help build capacity amongst Canadian youth to co-design, co-deliver and co-evaluate community-engaged concussion prevention and educational strategies with their peers — a perfect example of transdisciplinary scholarship in practice. 

Address a significant gap in evidence-informed strategies

To date, research into the prevention and management of youth sport-related concussion has often been done in urban centres and focused on male/boy athletes. A significant gap has been identified in adequately reaching youth with evidence-informed prevention and management solutions in under-represented communities including Indigenous, racialized, rural, female/girls, 2SLGBTQIA+, and Para sport.

In Toronto, Dr. Reed feels that the unique power of youth creating for their peers will be a key success factor in meeting the overall objectives of the project, particularly for young people in equity deserving communities. 

Reed says, “Through my experience leading the Youth Concussion Awareness Network I know that youth connecting with youth works. By combining these two existing national research programs and commencing You-CAN SHRed Concussions - we can empower Canadian youth to meaningfully help each other, making a real difference in reducing the burden of concussions.”

Impact beyond Canada’s borders

And it’s not solely a Canadian effort. Collaborators on the You-CAN SHRed Concussions project include researchers from around the world. Dr. Kay Crossley, Director of the La Trobe Sport and Exercise Medicine Research at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and visiting professor at UCalgary, believes this grant will have impacts beyond Canada’s borders. 

Crossley comments, “Injuries like concussions don't happen in Canada alone of course, so as an international collaborator I'm excited about being included on this incredible team, the work to come, and the knowledge I can share. At the same time, it's a great opportunity to bring some key learnings back to Australia and be part of real transdisciplinary scholarship and knowledge translation in action.”

Want to learn more? Join us on September 22

The SIPRC is hosting the Athlete Health, Safety, and Injury Prevention: A focus on girls, community and research engagement (CARE) annual symposium, offering an afternoon and evening of interactive learning about the latest in athlete health, safety and injury prevention research from the SIPRC and around the world. The day includes practical knowledge and research-based injury prevention practices and knowledge you will be able to share with sport organizations, athletes, coaches, teachers, and parents. They keynote speaker for this public event is Dr. Kay Crossley.

We hope you can join us! Register now.