# Injury rate for MMA compared to other sports.



## Drogo (Nov 19, 2006)

Dana White made the comment recently that Badmintion probably had a higher injury rate than MMA. He's exaggerating but his point, that MMA isn't that dangerous relative to other sports, should be easy to test statistically so I was looking around for some data.

I couldn't find much actually, this was the most relevant article and it is a bit dated (2002) but it is some hard data. 

From the article (here if you are interested (http://www.americansportsdata.com/pr-sportsinjuries.asp):

"The most practical method of assessing risk potential in a sport is to measure the number of injuries per 1,000 athlete exposures — i.e. the number of times a participant engages in the activity over the course of a year. Using this method, Boxing ranks first with 5.2 injuries per 1,000 exposures, followed by Tackle Football (3.8), Snowboarding (3.8), Ice Hockey (3.7), Alpine Skiing (3.0), Soccer (2.4), Softball (2.2) and Basketball (1.9)."

Martial Arts is listed as a sport and doesn't even crack the top 8 by this measurement although it does rate 4th overall when measuring injury rate per 100 players (which isn't the same as the stat I quoted first) behind football, boxing and hockey. 

However their definition of Martial Arts I suspect doesn't mean the MMA we see today and probably refers more to traditional martial arts that have less contact in training than MMA. 

This doesn't seem as favourable as MMA fans would like I imagine but it still serves to demonstrate that MMA is not more dangerous than any other contact sport. 
There must be more recent studies somewhere, anyone know of any?

I'm interested this mostly so that when I end up debating MMA safety with people ignorant of the sport that I have some hard data to demonstrate the relative safety of MMA.


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## Slamnbam88 (Oct 23, 2006)

link not working


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## jasvll (Mar 28, 2007)

Slamnbam88 said:


> link not working


http://www.americansportsdata.com/pr-sportsinjuries.asp


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## Elektronauts (Aug 26, 2007)

Dana was referring to death rates of MMA (in UFC) vs. Badminton, not injury rates.

I've read a few studies on the relative injury rates of MMA to other combat sports. There are not many studies out there that directly compare MMA to non-combative sports. You can try to juxtaposed the A/E or "participation" stats from various studies; the caveat being that different researchers have differing methodologies for determining injuries. 

Below is a list of citations I've used. I don't want to influence your interpretation so I won't be offering my conclusion. 


1. Ka Ming Ngai., et al. Injury Trends In Sanctioned Mixed Martial Arts Competition: A Five-Year Review 2002-2007, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Jan.2008 (http://bjsm.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/bjsm.2007.044891v2)
2. Zazryn T R, et al. A 16 year study of injuries to professional boxers in the state of Victoria, Australia, 2003. BJSMonline.com
3. Zazryn T R, et al. A 16 year study of injuries to professional kick-boxers in the state of Victoria, Australia, 2003. BJSMonline.com
4. Kazemi, Mohsen, et al. Injuries at a Canadian National Taekwondo Championship, July,2004. (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=506779)
5. Benson, B.W., et al., Head and neck injuries among ice hockey players wearing full face shields vs half face shields. Jama, 1999. 282(24): p. 2328-32.
6. Hewett, Timothy E., et al. Wrestling Injuries, Cincinnati’s College of Medicine, 2005.
7. Collins, M.W., et al., Relationship between concussion and neuropsychological performance in college football players. Jama, 1999. 282(10): p. 964-70.
8. Cantu, Robert M.D. Chief of Neurosurgery and Director of Sports Medicine Emerson Hospital. “ Boxing and Medicine Human Kinetics”, Illinois, 1995 (pp197-198) 
9. United States Dept of Labor "National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 2006" Aug.2007 (http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm#rates)


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## SmackyBear (Feb 14, 2008)

Elektronauts said:


> Dana was referring to death rates of MMA (in UFC) vs. Badminton, not injury rates.
> 
> I've read a few studies on the relative injury rates of MMA to other combat sports. There are not many studies out there that directly compare MMA to non-combative sports. You can try to juxtaposed the A/E or "participation" stats from various studies; the caveat being that different researchers have differing methodologies for determining injuries.
> 
> ...


Nice Info. The Johns Hopkins paper was very interesting. The injury rate seemed quite high but over 60% of the injuries were either facial lacerations or hand injuries. I'm glad they mentioned that the low knockout rate (relative to boxing) probably means there's a lower risk of traumatic brain injuries. I wish they had had more follow-up and compared their data to boxing in the same time frame in Nevada though. But I still thought it was a great read.


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## Drogo (Nov 19, 2006)

Thanks for the links. I found the statement by Mohsen (re: Taekwondo injuries) interesting. "It is not clear why men sustained injuries at a higher rate than the women." 

Isn't that fairly obvious? Men are bigger and stronger than women. Men have more and denser muscle fibers so even a 150lb man will be stronger than 150lb women (usually). Even fighting opponents of a similar size men are going to be more likely to cause injury because of this greater relative strength. 

I'd be willing to bet that with a large sample size you could see an increased injury trend among weight classes with HW's more likely to injure than LW's for the same reason.


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## mohod1982 (Oct 15, 2006)

i'm not sure if i agree with dana on this one.sure there are not many life threatening injuries but if you think about the gashes on the head/face,broken noses,exploding ears,busted knees,hamstrings,teeth getting knocked out e.t.c

i think mma has its fair share of injuries but overall its not as bad as some think it is.


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