Concussions and their effects have been a hot button issue in sports and for public health as a whole in recent years. Considering just adolescents (ages 0-18), it has been found that there are around 473,000 annual emergency department visits for head trauma, with over 75% of these being diagnosed as some form of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). A 2013 article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Babcock et al. found that about 29.3% of participants in a three-month follow-up of adolescents with mTBI (n=406) had experienced some form of post-concussion syndrome (PCS), with the most frequently occurring post-concussion symptom being headaches (30.5%).

The long-term effects of concussions has been a primary concern of the state high school athletic association as well. In an attempt to study this, a random sample of student-athletes who had experienced a concussion during this past school year were brought in for a three-month follow up to discuss any potential post-concussion symptoms they had experienced. The attached data includes basic demographic information about the student-athletes, their concussion history and an indicator of whether or not they experienced various post-concussion symptoms as included on the Post-Concussion Symptom Scale (PCSS). Previous history of concussions and presence of a symptom are indicated by 1 in the data set, and a lack of either by 0.

1. (15 points) Use descriptive statistics to summarize the proportion experiencing headache (grouped by history of previous concussion and total), the proportion experiencing any symptoms (grouped by history of previous concussion and total) and the mean number of symptoms experienced (grouped by sex and total). Discuss any relevant findings.

Previous Concussion #1 a: Sample Proportions No Previous Concussion Overall Headache 0.283018868 0.3125 0.292207792 Any Symptoms 0213721062 #1 a: Sample Sizes Previous Concussion No Previous Concussion Overall #1 b: Sample Means Male 0.581395349 0.795116411 Symptoms Experienced 0.0395 #1 b: Sample Sizes #2: 95% Cis n Point Estimate Margin of Error Lower Upper Cheerleading 19 0.7895 0.222 0.5675 1.0115 All student- sthletes 154 0.2922 0.0718 0.2204 0.364