Lack of Gender Diversity in Concussion Research

Female athletes are significantly under-represented in sport-related concussion research. Experts emphasize the need for more intentional recruitment and funding of gender diverse participants.

In the study, “Under-representation of female athletes in research informing influential concussion consensus and position statements: an evidence review and synthesis,” published online on July 18, 2022 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, study authors compared female athlete inclusion to male athlete inclusion in research data for sports-related concussion diagnosis and treatment.

The multi-center research team reviewed studies that were cited in the statements by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA), International Conference on Concussion in Sport (ICCS) and the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) and calculated the percentage of male and female athletes who participated in each one.

The team found a total of 171 studies. When they checked for female versus male inclusion, they found, after reviewing a sampling, that 80.1% included male participants (NATA: 79.9%, ICCS: 87.8%, AMSSM: 79.4%) and 40.4% of these studies included NO female participants at all. Out of the 171 studies reviewed, 69 were all-male studies and only 2 were all-female studies.

“Female athletes are significantly under-represented in the studies guiding clinical care for sport-related concussion for a broad array of sports and exercise medicine clinicians. We recommend intentional recruitment and funding of gender diverse participants in concussion studies, suggest authorship teams reflect diverse perspectives, and encourage consensus statements note when cited data under-represent non-male athletes,” they wrote.

In a blog post about their study, the researchers emphasized the differences in the disease process and in health-related behaviors between male and female athletes that can affect clinical care. The concern is that without enough female representation in concussion research, treatment will be targeted just for male athletes and not as effective for female athletes.

They added including more gender-diverse people on the journal editorial boards and on the writing teams of consensus statements would help encourage more gender diverse research.

The study authors included Christopher D’Lauro, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado; Emily Ruth Jones, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado and The University of Alabama System, Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Lily MC Swope, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado and F. Edward Herbert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland; Melissa N Anderson, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware and University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia; Steven Broglio, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Julianne D. Schmidt, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.