Sports injury and illness surveillance systems in nationwide and Japan

Abstract

Sports injury and illness surveillance systems are essential to facilitate the continuous availability of high-quality, longitudinal injury and illness data. There are 15 ongoing sports injury surveillance systems worldwide, based in Europe, the United States, and Australia. The majority of these sports injury surveillance systems operate within professional or elite sports. Contrastingly, a total of five sports injury surveillance systems developed among sports in Japan were included, most of which were based on insurance benefits or condolence payment systems. Therefore, it is necessary to establish club-based or organization-based sports injury and illness surveillance systems suitable for the Japanese sports setting to identify the exact magnitude of sports injuries and illnesses and to implement preventive measures among Japanese athletes.