Does community-level Australian football support injury prevention research?

The progress of injury prevention research in Australian football to date has been slow despite its recognition as a public health goal. In particular, field-based studies to identify injury risk factors and evaluate the effectiveness of injury prevention strategies need to be undertaken to ensure safety gains in this sport. For these types of studies to be successful and complied with, considerable support is required from clubs, coaches and players. To date, the actual level of support for injury prevention research at the community-level of football has not been established. A survey of 82 club administrators and coaches from the Victorian Amateur Football Association was undertaken to determine the level of support for injury prevention research, along with incentives for, and barriers towards, participation in such research. The highest priorities for injury prevention research were given as the prevention of knee, hamstring and concussion injuries and investigation into the content of training programs. The most common incentives reported as being necessary for participation in injury prevention research were financial assistance (59.5%), more club staff (57.0%) and further education (36.7%). The most commonly reported barriers to research were the expertise (50.0%) and number of (48.8%) of club medical staff members. Overall community-level football club administrators and coaches rank the importance of injury prevention research highly. The findings of this study are positive for injury prevention researchers and suggest that clubs are keen to participate in such research.