Do Asians Have Harder Heads? On Sports Concussions and the Need For a Fairer, Medical Research Funding Policy

By CHUNG, ZINK, BARR At a January event on “The Future of Baseball” organized by the Sports and Society Program at NYU’s School of Professional Studies, Yankees executive Jean Afterman spoke to the superiority of baseball over football by noting that “at least our athletes don’t have to worry about their heads after they’re done.”  It was an innocuous statement but one that points to a growing assumption that sports concussion is both (a) prevalent and (b) a debilitating disease to be feared. But is it true that sports concussions are the public health scourge of our time?  Media coverage would make it seem so, with countless stories dedicated to professional athletes suffering through pain and dementia, youthful athletes retiring for fear of brain injury, and billion dollar lawsuits against the NFL. A review of media reports highlights that the general public doesn’t know what it’s afraid of.  While concussion is generally understood to refer to mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), a blow to the head resulting in neurocognitive effects, the public seems more fixated on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease that still has no clear pathological link with mTBIs.  Yet, Will Smith starred in a movie about CTE titled – you guessed it – Concussion. This confusion isn’t simply a media creation – doctors themselves can’t agree on key elements of concussion and related effects.  For instance, even as stories of ch...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs