The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has partnered with Sport Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to investigate how better data on sporting injuries can be made to lead to improvements in injury prevention and management.
Supporting the partnership, the AIHW released a report on health spending related to physical activity and opened consultation on how a National Sports Injury Data Asset (NSIDA) could be developed and operate.
AIHW said its Economics of sports injury and participation – Preliminary results Report suggested that around three quarters of a billion dollars was spent each year on managing relatively severe injuries that were associated with inadequate injury prevention and management during physical activity ($764 million in 2018-19).
“This Report also suggests that conditions associated with physical inactivity cost the health system close to one billion dollars each year ($968 million in 2018-19),” it said.
“Demonstrating the savings that can be achieved, however, it is estimated that health spending could be as much as half a billion dollars higher if the Australian people were less physically active (at least $484 million in 2018-19).”
The AIHW said the aim of its partnership with Sport Australian and the AIS was to look at how a NSIDA could provide insight on the types and causes of sports injury in the community; help sports bodies and participants understand where injury prevention programs were needed; and provide ongoing surveillance to monitor trends and evaluate injury prevention programs.
The AIHW said as part of the project, it was collecting input from sports organisations, health-care providers, insurers and Government Agencies to understand what sports injury data was currently being collected.
The Institute’s 75-page National sports injury data strategy Consultation Paper can be accessed at this PS News link and its 34-page Economics of sports injury report at this link.
