Over the past two decades, high school student-athletes’ access to athletic trainers has doubled, according to a study published online in the Journal of Athletic Training last month.
The authors surveyed all 14,951 public high schools across the nation from September 2011 through December 2013 to gauge their access to athletic trainers. Of the 8,500 schools that responded, 5,930 (70 percent) reported having athletic-training services, and 86 percent of all student-athletes—roughly 2.4 million out of 2.8 million—had access to athletic trainers.
Thirty-seven percent of high schools nationwide (3,145) had full-time athletic trainers on staff, while 31 percent had part-time trainers, and 2 percent had per diem trainers.
