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Smugglers' Notch Vermont-Press Releases
Winter 2007-2008
Vermont Ski Helmet Research Team Issues National Challenge in 2008
January 2008
BURLINGTON, VT – As the ski season gets into full swing, the director of the Snow Sports Research Team at the University of Vermont (UVM) College of Medicine and Fletcher Allen Health Care has issued a challenge to all skiers and to the ski industry to find a way to voluntarily increase helmet use and help reduce both the rate and severity of head injuries.
This challenge is based on the team’s research and a pilot program that resulted in a 90 percent helmet rate use in children at the pilot program’s participating resort in 2007.
The Snow Sports Research Team will help organizations wanting to take up the challenge by providing a program “starter kit” with sample materials. “Hopefully, Santa left a lot of helmets under Christmas trees this year,” said Dr. Robert Williams, the Snow Sports Research Team’s director. Dr. Williams, an associate professor at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, is a pediatric anesthesiologist and a pediatric critical care specialist at Fletcher Allen Health Care, the teaching hospital affiliated with UVM. “This year, every skier and snowboarder should wear a helmet on the slopes. There are simply no excuses left for not eliminating preventable head injuries while skiing and riding.”
Research Supports Helmet Use
Medical evidence has been accumulating over the past several years strongly supporting the use of ski helmets to prevent both minor and major head injuries. “Research papers in well-respected publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association indicate that ski helmets are effective in decreasing the incidence of head injuries in both skiers and snowboarders,” noted Dr. Williams.
According to a study by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2004, over 17,000 head injuries a year would be eliminated if every skier wore a helmet. “That’s a lot of heart ache, not to mention millions of dollars spent on medical care and rehabilitation expenses that could be prevented by the simple act of strapping on a helmet every time a skier or rider hits the slopes,” Dr. Williams observed.
“Our team’s research indicates that a voluntary program of education and self-responsibility can achieve much higher rates of helmet use than currently observed nationwide,” he continued.
The PHAT program in Vermont
Over the past five years, the Snow Sports Research Team has conducted thousands of surveys and made over 70,000 observations of helmet use by skiers and snowboarders. Based on this research, the team designed a promotional program to educate the skiing public of the positive benefits of ski helmet use.
Entitled PHAT, for Protect your Head at All Times, the program requires resort involvement so that program coordinators can conduct “PHAT Days” at the resort, where young skiers without helmets are made aware of the benefits of helmet use by giving away brochures and ski posters that promote helmet safety, at booths in a cafeteria or outdoors near the lifts. Children wearing helmets receive appealing stickers to decorate them with the PHAT theme. The resorts give out a PHAT brochure with each lift ticket sale. In some events, free helmet raffles were held. The starter kit provides sample materials to help appropriate organizations that want to take up the challenge.
The program was piloted at Smugglers' Notch Resort in Jeffersonville, Vermont. Through a grant from the Vermont Health Foundation at Fletcher Allen, the program has been expanded to eight other ski resorts in Vermont during the past two years with assistance from the Vermont Ski Areas Association.
Snow Sports Research Team Research Findings
“These resorts were very accepting of our program and we are very encouraged by our results,” said Tom Delaney, Ph.D. research analyst in Pediatrics, and a member of the team. “Nationwide, ski helmet use rates are approximately 30-35 percent. At Smugglers' Notch, among our most targeted groups of riders, the use rates are approximately 70 percent for adults and 90 percent for children. This indicates to us that with a similar nationwide effort at educating the skiing public on the advantage of ski helmets, we could achieve nearly universal ski helmet use in a voluntary, non-coercive approach.”
Dr. Williams said, “Skiing and snowboarding are wonderful forms of outdoor exercise that we should strongly encourage in our children. However, as with most sports, there are some risks which we can mitigate. Just as no Little Leaguer goes to bat without a batting helmet, similarly no child, or adult, should ski or ride the slopes without wearing a ski helmet.”
Dr. Williams added, “Another study we conducted showed that terrain parks and glade skiing now offered by resorts results in lower average speeds than skiing on open slopes. Lower speeds in these areas only increase the value of wearing a helmet."
“The time to act is now,” continues Dr. Williams, “No more needless head injuries. Although wearing a helmet certainly won’t protect skiers and boarders against all head injuries in the event of an accident, they offer an extra degree of protection.
“We have shown in Vermont that the use of helmets can be effectively promoted in a very positive way without the use of scare tactics,” Dr. Williams concluded. “We have designed a program in collaboration with the local ski industry that appears highly effective in getting skiers into helmets. While we are pleased at the potential for reducing the incidence of head injuries in our small state, we challenge the ski industry nationwide to find a way to get as many skiers and snowboarders into a helmet as possible. The goal should be 100 percent.”
Contacts:
Jennifer Nachbur
UVM College of Medicine
(802)656-7875
Mike Noble
Fletcher Allen Health Care
(802) 847-2886
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