National collegiate athletic association injury surveillance system: review of methods for 2004-2005 through 2013-2014 data collection

Background: Since 1982, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has used the Injury Surveillance System (ISS) to collect injury and athlete-exposure data from a representative sample of collegiate institutions and sports. At the start of the 2004-2005 academic year, a Web-based ISS replaced the paper-based platform previously used for reporting injuries and exposures.

Objective: To describe the methods of the Web-based National Collegiate Athletic Association ISS for data collection as implemented from the 2004-2005 to 2013-2014 academic years.

Description: The Web-based ISS monitored National Collegiate Athletic Association-sanctioned practices and competitions, the number of participating student-athletes, and time-loss injuries during the preseason, regular season, and postseason in 25 collegiate sports. Starting in the 2009-2010 academic year, non-time-loss injuries were also tracked. Efforts were made to better integrate ISS data collection into the workflow of collegiate athletic trainers. Data for the 2004-2005 to 2013-2014 academic years are available to researchers through a standardized application process available at the Datalys Center Web site.

Conclusions: As of February 2014, more than 1 dozen data sets have been provided to researchers. The Datalys Center encourages applications for access to the data.