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 m ethod of calculating an injury index related to the distance traveled on sk i or snowboard. The distance-correlated injury index equals the number of i njuries per 100,000 km traveled distance. This injury index can also be cor related to the type of equipment used. The equipment-specific distance-corr elated injury index is the same as the distance-correlated injury index, bu t it is sport-specific. We found the distance-correlated injury index for a lpine skiing to be 3.9 (95% Cl = 2.8 to 5.4); for snowboarding, 13.5 (95% C l = 8.3 to 22.0); and for telemark skiing, 3.0 (95% Cl = 1.0 to 9.4), sugge sting a three- to four-times higher incidence of injuries requiring hospita l treatment among snowboarders than among alpine and telemark skiers.