PURPOSE: Investigating injury and illness epidemiology in professional Asian football.
STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive prospective study.
METHODS: Professional teams from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) league were followed prospectively for three consecutive AFC seasons (2017 through 2019, 13 teams per season, 322 team months). Time-loss injuries and illnesses in addition to individual match and training exposure were recorded using standardised digital tools in accordance with international consensus procedures.
RESULTS: In total, 232 665 hours of exposure (88.6% training and 11.4% matches) and 1159 injuries were recorded; 496 (42.8%) occurred during matches, 610 (52.6%) during training; 32 (2.8%) were reported as 'not applicable' and for 21 injuries (1.8%) information was missing. Injury incidence was significantly greater during match play (19.2±8.6 injuries per 1000 hours) than training (2.8±1.4, p<0.0001), resulting in a low overall incidence of 5.1±2.2.The injury burden for match injuries was greater than from training injuries (456±336 days per 1000 hours vs 54±34 days, p<0.0001). The two specific injuries causing the greatest burden were complete ACL ruptures (0.14 injuries (95% CI 0.9 to 0.19) and 29.8 days lost (29.1 to 30.5) per 1000 hours) and hamstring strains (0.86 injuries (0.74 to 0.99) and 17.5 days (17.0 to 18.1) lost per 1000 hours).Reinjuries constituted 9.9% of all injuries. Index injuries caused 22.6±40.8 days of absence compared with 25.1±39 for reinjuries (p=0.62). The 175 illnesses recorded resulted in 1.4±2.9 days of time loss per team per month.
CONCLUSION: Professional Asian football is characterised by an overall injury incidence similar to that reported from Europe, but with a high rate of ACL ruptures and hamstring injury, warranting further investigations.
METHODS: An agent-based model (ABM) is a relatively new approach that provides a framework for analyzing the heterogeneity of the interactions, along with biological and environmental factors in such complex systems. The objective of this research is to design and develop an ABM that uses Geospatial Information System (GIS) capabilities, biological behaviors of vectors and reservoir hosts, and an improved Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered (SEIR) epidemic model to explore the spread of ZCL. Various scenarios were implemented to analyze the future ZCL spreads in different parts of Maraveh Tappeh County, in the northeast region of Golestan Province in northeastern Iran, with alternative socio-ecological conditions.
RESULTS: The results confirmed that the spread of the disease arises principally in the desert, low altitude areas, and riverside population centers. The outcomes also showed that the restricting movement of humans reduces the severity of the transmission. Moreover, the spread of ZCL has a particular temporal pattern, since the most prevalent cases occurred in the fall. The evaluation test also showed the similarity between the results and the reported spatiotemporal trends.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the capability and efficiency of ABM to model and predict the spread of ZCL. The results of the presented approach can be considered as a guide for public health management and controlling the vector population .