Risk of Injury during Alpine and Telemark Skiing and Snowboarding: the Equipment-Specific Distance-Correlated Injury Index

Estimation of injury risk in alpine sports is difficult. We present a new method of calculating an injury index related to the distance traveled on ski or snowboard. The distance-correlated injury index equals the number of injuries per 100,000 km traveled distance. This injury index can also be correlated to the type of equipment used. The equipment-specific distance-correlated injury index is the same as the distance-correlated injury index, but it is sport-specific. We found the distance-correlated injury index for alpine skiing to be 3.9 (95% Cl = 2.8 to 5.4); for snowboarding, 13.5 (95% Cl = 8.3 to 22.0); and for telemark skiing, 3.0 (95% Cl = 1.0 to 9.4), suggesting a three- to four-times higher incidence of injuries requiring hospital treatment among snowboarders than among alpine and telemark skiers.