Preventing Oral and Facial Injuries: Population-Based Interventions to Encourage Use of Helmets, Facemasks, and Mouthguards in Contact Sports

Task Force Finding*

Population-based interventions to encourage the use of helmets, facemasks, and mouthguards in contact sports aim to prevent injuries to the head, face, and mouth. Rules of play involving use of helmets, facemasks, goggles, and mouthguards vary by sport and position played. Intervention programs educate health professionals, parents, coaches, players, and officials of organized sports about the risks of injury and the potential benefits of protective equipment; offer incentives for regular use of protective equipment at both practice and formal competition; and encourage the enforcement of rules of play involving use of safety equipment.

The Task Force identified four qualifying studies that evaluated the effectiveness of intervention programs in (1) increasing the frequency of correct use of helmets, facemasks, and mouthguards; and (2) reducing the incidence, prevalence, or recurrence and type and severity of sports-related injuries to the head, face, and mouth. Those studies provide insufficient evidence of the effectiveness of such programs in changing the behavior of players or in reducing the frequency of sports-related injuries to the head, face, and mouth. Although effectiveness could not be established, mainly because of inadequate number, design, or execution of studies, readers are reminded that the use of helmets, facemasks, and mouthguards is mandatory in many sports and encouraged by a Healthy People 2010 objective.

*From the following publication:

Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Recommendations on selected interventions to prevent dental caries, oral and pharyngeal cancers, and sports-related craniofacial injuries. [PDF - 69KB] Am J Prev Med 2002;23(1S):16-20.

Review completed: November 2001