The Failure of Youth Sports Concussion Laws and the Limits of Legislating Health Education

Abstract

Legislatures have increasingly turned to education-based strategies to address significant public health challenges, despite unclear efficacy of statutory mandated education. In this Article, we examine the recent and rapid adoption of youth sports concussion laws as a lens to explore the limits of education based legislative intervention models. In less than 10 years, all 50 states adopted a youth sports concussion statute—and each law mandates concussion education for coaches and/or student athletes. This expansive, expensive intervention was designed to reduce concussion incidence and improve concussion care. But based on a review of 54 peer-reviewed studies, we argue that concussion education has not, and likely will not, produce the desired public health outcomes.