Research + News | Topic: Cheerleading

New Guidelines to Prevent Cheerleading Injuries

A new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) describes the epidemiology of cheerleading injuries and provides recommendations for injury prevention. From 1990 to 2003, the number of U.S. cheerleaders age 6 and older increased by roughly 600,000, from 3 million to 3.6 million. Since 2007, there are 26,000 cheerleading injuries in the U.S. annually. Cheerleading accounts for 66 percent of all catastrophic injuries in high school female athletes over the past 25 years.

Download the AAP Policy Statement (.pdf) here.