High School Football and Adult Health

• ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03914573
• Recruitment Status: Completed
• First Posted: April 16, 2019
• Last Update Posted: April 18, 2019
• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania
• Collaborator: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Information provided by (Responsible Party): University of Pennsylvania

Study Description

Brief Summary:

The primary aim of the study is to determine the effect of playing high school football on self-rated health in late adulthood. This is an observational study that will use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a longitudinal cohort of high school graduates from 1957, to compare graduates who played high school football with comparable graduates who did not play football on self-rated health, pain, functional ability, and weight at the age of 65 years.

Condition or disease
Health Impairment; Pain; Obesity

Detailed Description:

Data will be used from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), a long-term study of a random sample of 10,317 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957 to determine the association between participation in high-school football and self-rated health, pain, and obesity in late adulthood. The WLS is an optimal observational dataset to answer these hypotheses. WLS captures early-life exposures that are important predictors of health and well-being in later life such parental socioeconomic status, occupation, and education level, family structure, and race. It also captures whether study participants participated in high school football and contains detailed measurements of their health in adulthood. WLS provides a robust and longitudinal dataset, overcoming the limitations of prior cross-sectional studies, to compare the health in later adulthood of those who played high school football to those who did not, after carefully controlling for a potential confounders

A matched observational study will be conducted, in which football players and controls will be divided into smaller subgroups which are relatively homogeneous along a range of baseline covariates. The outcomes will be compared within each matched set, after adjusting for residual imbalances in the distribution of these baseline covariates between the football players and controls.

Study Design

• Study Type: Observational
• Actual Enrollment: 3355 participants
• Observational Model: Cohort
• Time Perspective: Retrospective
• Official Title: Observational Study of the Association of Participation in High School Football on Health in Late Adulthood
• Actual Study Start Date: January 1957
• Actual Primary Completion Date: December 2003
• Actual Study Completion Date: December 2011

Groups and Cohorts

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures :

1. Self-rated Health [ Time Frame: Collected in 2003-2005 when participants were aged 65 ]
   Subjects reported whether their health was excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor. We dichotomized subjects' responses, coding "excellent", "very good", and "good" as 0 and coding "fair" and "poor" as 1

Secondary Outcome Measures :

1. Pain that limits activities [ Time Frame: Collected in 2003-2005 when participants were aged 65 ]
   Subjects reported whether during the past 4 weeks, how many of their activities were limited by pain or discomfort. We coded subject responses as 1 if they responded that some, most, or all of their activities were limited and 0 if they responded that none or a few activities were limited.
2. Difficulty in Activities of Daily Living [ Time Frame: Collected in 2003-2005 when participants were aged 65 ]
   Subjects reported whether during the past 4 weeks, have they been able to eat, bathe, dress and use the toilet without difficulty. We coded 0 for no difficulty and 1 for any difficulty.
3. Maximum Lifetime Body Mass Index [ Time Frame: Collected in the WLS mail survey in 2004 ]
   Subjects reported their maximum lifetime weight and the age at which they weighed the most. From these responses, we computed the maximum adult BMI for each subject who reported that they reached their maximum weight when they were 18 years old or older.

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child, Adult, Older Adult
• Sexes Eligible for Study: Male
• Gender Based Eligibility: Yes
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Sampling Method: Probability Sample

Study Population

Graduates of Wisconsin high schools in 1957. The data comes from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), a long-term study of a random sample of 10,317 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957.

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Male

Exclusion Criteria:

• No yearbook information available to determine football playing status
• Sports participation in yearbook was not recorded under senior photo or in an index
• Played a high contact sport other than football (e.g. hockey)

Contacts and Locations

Locations

United States, Massachusetts

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, 02139

United States, Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104

Sponsors and Collaborators

University of Pennsylvania

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Investigators

• Principal Investigator: Timothy Gaulton, MD; University of Pennsylvania
• Principal Investigator: Sameer Deshpande, PhD; Massachusetts Insitute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Dylan Small, PhD; University of Pennsylvania
• Principal Investigator: Mark D Neuman, MD; University of Pennsylvania

More Information

• Responsible Party: University of Pennsylvania
• ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03914573
• Other Study ID Numbers: 833020
• First Posted: April 16, 2019
• Last Update Posted: April 18, 2019
• Last Verified: April 2019

Individual Participant Data (IPD) Sharing Statement:

• Plan to Share IPD: No

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Drug Product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Device Product: No

Keywords provided by University of Pennsylvania:

health; football; pain; obesity

Additional relevant MeSH terms:

Obesity; Overnutrition; Nutrition Disorders; Overweight; Body Weight