Promoting safe participation in community level sports: supported implementation of an injury prevention exercise program.

Research problem and specific questionsParticipation in sports and physical activity contributes to health, but injuries present a significant burden for both the individual and society.

Despite strong evidence that injury prevention exercise programs reduce injury risk in sports, sustained high-fidelity program implementation is difficult. We have developed an injury prevention exercise program for community level sports.

In this project our main research question is; how can we best support implementation of the injury prevention exercise program to enhance program adoption, long-term sustainability, and preventive effectiveness?

Data and methodThe project comprises 5 sub-studies over three years (2024-2026), where we combine quantitative and qualitative methods.

The main study is a large-scale cluster RCT (effectiveness-implementation hybrid trial, type 3) in community level football (male and female players 12-years or older) where we evaluate the effect of supported implementation (intervention) versus unsupported implementation (control) of the exercise program over one season (2025).

The main outcome is program adoption among teams, and secondary outcomes include effect on injury risk.

Additional observational studies (two survey studies, two qualitative studies) will inform development of the implementation support intervention, evaluate coach and athlete self-efficacy to use the program, and follow up on long-term sustainability of program use.

Societal relevance and utilisationThe context is community level sports, we use football as a model but results will be generalizable to other sports.

We aim to optimize implementation of a low-cost injury risk mitigation strategy, which has high relevance from both an individual and public health perspective.

Wide-spread use of injury prevention training in community sports may reduce the injury burden and associated costs for society.

If successful, we have established collaboration with governing sport associations to provide a platform for research dissemination and to upscale the implementation support nation-wide.

Plan for project realisationOur research group has vast experience in conducting large-scale injury prevention trials in sports, and from collaboration with the sports community to conduct research and enhance research utilization.

This collaboration, and user participation with coaches as research partners through the whole project, strengthens the feasibility and relevance of the project.