Child and adolescent sports participant issues

In this month's journal there is a theme of issues of the child and adolescent sports participant. In the sports and exercise medicine section, Haran and co-workers make a strong case for enhancing the on field assessment of children and adolescents with sports relates concussions finding that a significant proportion of their study sample were not managed according to current best practice guidelines. In the sports injury section, Orr and Cheng outline the need for rigourous but low burden injury surveillance mechanisms in elite Australian junior rugby league players. In the physical activity section, Carson and colleagues report that the transition into school time for 3–5 year olds marks a significant reduction in physical activity levels. In a study focussing on the nature of the children's playground itself, Boonzajer Flaes’ group report a positive impact of providing safe public playgrounds in deprived neighbourhoods on physical activity levels in children. In a large multicentre collaboration Brazendale and co-workers describe the development of an equating system allowing researchers to synthesize data from Actigraph studies using different cut points in the International Children's Accelerometer Database.