iReport SportsPhysio Platform: A Unifying Model for Sports Injuries Surveillance and Monitoring

An accumulation of scientific evidence has emerged during the 1980s and 1990s, that is, physical activity would have significant benefits on health and well-being. Consequently, increasing participation of people in physical activities over the last decades has also led to a growing number of sports injuries and, simultaneously, higher demands on financial resources in global healthcare systems. Today, sports injuries are seen as a major public health problem in many developed, as well as developing, countries. This article illustrates the importance of having a platform such as iReport SportsPhysio to address such a rising issue globally. iReport SportsPhysio is a Web-based platform directed to sports health professionals to provide standard sports injuries monitoring and surveillance at a national level. The platform supports the acquisition, analysis and dissemination of sports injuries information, allowing health professionals to register and analyze sports injuries across various sports populations. Essentially, the platform provides a mechanism to house diverse statistical data in the form of tables and charts to analyze injuries at three levels: (1) athlete level independently of where individual athlete practices; (2) specific sports level across organizations; and (3) sports organizations level. A module for a global analysis is also made available, which allows the iReport SportsPhysio to obtain the incidence and prevalence measures, besides the socioeconomics costs relating to sports injuries at a global level. In order to offer these features, the platform is based on a global sports injury data model with the goal of standardizing data related to sports injuries.