Dive Brief:
- The National Football League (NFL) has added four research universities to a project that is using mouthguard sensors to collect data from on-field head impacts.
- Working with medtech company Align Technology, the NFL will offer customized, sensor-loaded mouthguards to football players at eight universities, doubling the size of the program.
- Data from the sensors could show what the human head experiences during an impact, improving efforts to understand and reduce concussions in football.
Dive Insight:
The NFL’s concussion protocols came under scrutiny again after Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa returned to the field after a head injury in a September game. Against that backdrop, the NFL revealed an expansion of its research into on-field head impacts late last week.
Last year, football players at The University of Alabama, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The University of Washington and University of Wisconsin could opt-in to wear a mouthguard that contains sensors as part of a research program. The NFL has doubled the size of the program for the coming year by adding The University of Florida, The University of Georgia, The University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt University to its list of partners.
Across the universities, more than 250 players have been measured for sensor-loaded mouthguards. The mouthguards are customized to each player using Align technology for scanning teeth. Each university will receive an analysis of impacts involving players on their teams to inform their own player health and safety programs.
The NFL will analyze anonymized data from all the players with independent experts at Biocore and the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Analyzing the data, plus information collected from four NFL clubs, will show frequency and severity of impacts in games, and practices to inform the league’s approach to injury reduction.
