banner ad
Experts Logo

articles

Do Football Helmet Warnings Prevent Injury?

Originally Published in The Goldhaber Warnings Report, September 2013

By: Gerald M. Goldhaber, Ph.D.
Tel: 212-379-6661
Email Dr. Goldhaber


View Profile on Experts.com.


Anyone who bas seen a football helmet in recent days may be suprised at the bluntness of the warnings advising players that the very product they are wearing to prevent injury may not do that at all. For example, the warning that appears inside helmets manufactured by both Schutt Sports and Rawlings contain this conclusion:

"NO HELMET SYSTEM CAN PROTECT YOU FROM SERIOUS BRAlN AND/OR NECK INJURIES INCLUDING PARALYSIS OR DEATH. TO AVOID THESE RISKS, DO NOT ENGAGE IN THE SPORT OF FOOTBALL".

In other words, the companies that make the helmets are implying to prospective football players that they may want to try a less risky sport: Tennis anyone?

As explicit as these helmet warnings are, they may be targeting the wrong audience and using the wrong medium of communication. It goes without saying that the helmet companies' lawyers believe that these warnings will protect their clients in potential lawsuits. However, as in any form of communication, it is essential to identify the most important audience to receive the message. I believe that this audience is not the player, not the coach or trainer but the PARENT(S) of prospective players, starting as far back as middle school. In most states, a parent must sign a permission slip to allow their child to play football.

Several years ago, my firm did a national survey of parents of high school football players and found that hardly any parents perceived the risk of severe brain injury as being associated with the sport of football. Most parents believed that their child was at risk for cuts, bruises and an occasional broken limb. While 94% understood the risk of broken bones and knee injuries, only 0.6% identified the risk of severe brain injury. Further, less than 5% of parents were even aware of the helmet warning labels.

Given these dismal statistics, it would seem to me that the obvious solution to improve parent awareness of the true risks of playing football should come from the age old process of face-to-face communication, perhaps at meetings between parents and coaches, during which a candid and frank discussion of ALL potential football injuries is clearly and forcefully communicated In that way, parents will be making an INFORMED DECISION, rather than one probably based on incomplete information.

Feel free to pass this issue of the Goldhaber Warnings Report on to any interested friends or colleagues.


Dr. Gerald M. Goldhaber, the President of Goldhaber Research Associates, LLC, is a nationally recognized expert in the fields of Political Polling and Warning Label Research. His clients include Fortune 500 companies, as well as educational and governmental organizations. He has conducted hundreds of surveys, including political polls for candidates running for U.S Congress, Senate, and President. Dr. Goldhaber also served as a consultant to President Reagan's Private Sector Survey for Cost Control.

©Copyright - All Rights Reserved

DO NOT REPRODUCE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION BY AUTHOR.

Related articles

Goldhaber-Research-Associates-Logo.jpg

8/26/2009· Warnings & Labels

The Age of Our Warnings Contempt: Forbidden Fruit Theory

By: Dr. Gerald Goldhaber

The Goldhaber Warnings Report: This past weekend as Hurricane Bill brushed past the Eastern Coast Line of the United States, bringing dangerous riptides to our shores, police and lifeguards posted explicit warning signs (reinforced by nonstop media coverage about the dangers of these riptides) closing beaches from North Carolina throughout New Jersey, New York and New England. Despite this barrage of warning and safety information, who can forget the televised images of the hundreds of apparent daredevils, mostly young men, ignoring the warnings and entering the beaches to look at the waves, and even swim or surf in the turbulent waters!

expert_placeholder

3/26/2014· Warnings & Labels

Warnings: When Do They Help, When Do They Hurt?

By: Dr. Kenneth Solomon

In essence, to warn is to place someone on advance notice of a danger or a potential danger. To warn requires that the person or people giving the warning have a superior knowledge of the harm or potential harm compared to the person or people exposed. Further, the person or the people who are warning must also have a superior knowledge of the means of reducing either the likelihood and/or the magnitude of the harm or potential harm as compared with the person or people exposed.

Goldhaber-Research-Associates-Logo.jpg

8/30/2017· Warnings & Labels

Close The Revolving Door

By: Dr. Gerald M. Goldhaber

Regulatory agencies (e.g., FDA, OSHA, CPSC, NHTSA, etc.) exist to serve and protect the public from bad actors in the corporate or industrial world whose decisions and actions may lead to products or services that could potentially harm or kill workers and consumers. It would seem obvious, therefore, that the leaders of these agencies would be strong, neutral and objective regulators without close ties to the very industries they must regulate. Under such a model, the best interests of the public could be served without concern for the profits of the regulated industries. Unfortunately, as anyone who reads any newspaper knows too well, that model has never been true. In fact, since the creation of virtually every regulatory agency, the leadership of these agencies have either come from or exited to the very industries they were to regulate.

;
Experts.com-No broker Movie Ad

Follow us

linkedin logo youtube logo rss feed logo
;