Athletic training employment in secondary schools by geographic setting and school size within the United States.

CONTEXT: The Athletic Training Locations and Services (ATLAS) Annual Report suggests there are differences in athletic trainer (AT) employment status on the basis of geographic locale. However, the influence of geographic locale and the school size on AT employment is undetermined.
OBJECTIVE: To describe if differences exist in the odds of having AT services by locale for public and private schools, and by student enrollment for public schools.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional study.
SETTING: Public and private secondary schools with athletics programs. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Data from 20,078 US public and private secondary schools were obtained. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES(S): Data were collected by the ATLAS Project. AT employment status, locales (City, Suburban, Town, and Rural) for public and private schools, and school size category (large, moderate, medium, and small) only for public schools were obtained. AT employment status was examined for each category with odds ratios. A prediction model was produced by Logistic Regression Analysis.
RESULTS: Of the 19,918 public and private schools with AT employment status and locale, Suburban schools had the highest access to AT services (80.1%) with an increased odds compared with Rural schools (OR = 3.55 [3.28 to 3.850]). Of 15,850 public schools with AT employment status and student enrollment, large schools had the highest rate of having AT services (92.1%) with nearly 18.5 times greater odds (OR = 18.480 [16.197 to 21.083]) versus small schools. The logistic model determined that an odds of having access to AT increases by 2.883 times as the school size goes up by one category.
CONCLUSIONS: Nationally, Suburban schools and large public schools have the largest access to AT services compared to schools that are in more remote areas and with less student enrollment. These findings elucidate the geographic locales and student enrollment levels where AT services are most prevalent. © by the National Athletic Trainers' Association, Inc.