Browsing by Author "Lee, Raymond"

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    An Economic Evaluation of Body Checking Policies in Bantam Ice Hockey
    (2019-01-25) Lee, Raymond; Currie, Gillian R.; Marshall, Deborah A.; Emery, Carolyn A.; Palacios-Derflingher, Luz Maria
    Sport-related injury is the leading cause of injury in youth and are costly to the healthcare system. Disallowing body checking in Pee Wee (ages 11-12) ice hockey has been found to be effective in reducing the risk of injuries and associated healthcare costs, however the impact on injury risk and costs in Bantam (ages 13-14) remains unknown. The objectives of this study are to compare injury rates and costs between non-elite (lower 70% divisions of play) Bantam players in leagues allowing body checking to where body checking is disallowed, and to project the overall change on the number of injuries and costs to the Alberta healthcare system if body checking were disallowed for all Bantam players over one season. The study found that disallowing body checking reduced injuries by 4.32/1000 player-hours and saved cost by $1,737/1000 player-hours in the public healthcare system. This policy change could potentially prevent 1,102 injuries that occur during games and save $331,522 in the public healthcare system over one season in Alberta. However, this study used injury rates adjusted only for exposure hours and team clustering, but not other covariates or repeated observations. Thus further analysis is required before policy recommendations can be made.