Abstract
Many youths participate in sports, and it is of interest to understand the impact of youth sports participation on later-life outcomes. However, prospective studies take a long time to complete and retrospective studies may be more practical and time-efficient to address some questions. We pilot a retrospective survey of youth sports participation and examine agreement between respondent's self-reported participation with high school records in a sample of 84 adults who graduated from high school between 1948 and 2018. The percent agreement between our survey and the school resources for individual sports ranged between 91.5% and 100%. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the reliability of retrospective self-report of youth sports participation. This survey may serve as an efficient approach for evaluating relationships between involvement in youth sports and health outcomes later in adulthood.
Highlights
Playing high school sports has historically been and continues to be a prominent part of adolescence and young adulthood
An electronic link to the survey was shared with two athletic trainers for comment after which the survey was piloted among a group of undergraduate research assistants (RAs) who were not involved in survey development
To illustrate the duration and intensity information gathered through the survey, we report data for several measures of intensity, such as years of play, weekly hours spent participating in practice and games, and team achievements for the most frequently participated in sports—basketball and soccer (Table 2)
Summary
Playing high school sports has historically been and continues to be a prominent part of adolescence and young adulthood. Participation in high school sports has recently declined (from 7,980,886 in 2017–2018 to 7,937,491 in 2018–2019), led by declines in football participation, marking the first decline in participation for more than 30 years [1]. Reasons for this decline may be multifaceted and partially attributed to growing concern over the short- and long-term implications on mental and cognitive health of playing collision sports [2].
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