Every Sunday night from September into February, American football fans gather in living rooms, bars, and stadiums alike to celebrate and cheer on their teams. Football is a staple of U.S. culture. From the “high school captain of the football team” jock to the NFL Hall of Famer, the image of a football player is synonymous with Americana. But is that enough to justify chronic brain damage? Are our football players really safe, and why does it matter?
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a condition of neurological damage caused by repeated concussions and head trauma that leads to early death, usually from athletics like football. The Boston University CTE Center have found that 91% of brain samples examined from former NFL players had CTE. Exposure to repeated head trauma and CTE are linked with cognitive decline, depression, suicidal behavior, poor impulse control, aggressiveness, parkinsonism, and, eventually, dementia. Our young, budding athletes in high school are at serious risk of disability and CTE compared to non-athletes during their brains’ most formative years. Schools should be building brains, not breaking them.
What policies exist to protect our athletes, and what are we missing? What sociological factors contribute to this undue harm? How can we preserve the neurological health of our athletes young and old? In other words, why should we care about football in public health? In this month’s episode of PHPod, host Abby Varker meets with experts on the subject to learn more.
Drs. Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva are authors of the book “The End of College Football” and co-hosts of the podcast, The End of Sport. The pair has contributed extensively to the conversation on protecting athletes’ rights and safety. Their research focuses on the intersection of social theory and sociology of sports with a focus on labor, racism, and exploitation. The pair examines how physical harm, coaching abuse, economic extraction, and more make U.S. college football one of the most exploitative facets of American society.
Abby Varker is an MPH candidate at Boston University School of Public Health, studying health policy and law, and sex, sexuality, and gender. Her passions include establishing policy to promote sexual and reproductive health and low-cost health care. Her background is in psychology, ethics, and the natural sciences, which informs her public health practice. Outside of her public health work, Abby is in an a cappella group and has been singing since she was 4 years old.
PHPod host Abby Varker explores how public transportation can be a mode of public health improvement with Jed Paul, physician and social media influencer (@jeddeo1), and Jonathan Buonocore, assistant professor of environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health.
The Lavender Haze: Enabling a Healthy Queer Future
PHPod sits down with Kim Nelson, associate professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health, and Joanne Patterson, a behavioral scientist at Ohio State University, to discuss the current health landscape that queer youth and young adults are facing in the United States.
Artful Healing: The Intersection of Tattoo Artistry and Trauma-Informed Care
PHPod sits down with Kat O’Hare, a part-time therapist at Mass Bay Counseling and a tattoo artist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss tattooing as a practice of body reclamation, the importance of trauma-informed care in this work, and how O'Hare brings patience and empathy to her work to create empowering experiences for her clients.