WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 29, 2014) – The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) joined some of the nation’s leading sports officials and medical experts, parents and young athletes for the first White House Healthy Kids and Safe Sports Concussion Summit. NOCSAE is an independent and nonprofit standard-setting body with the sole mission to enhance athletic safety through scientific research and the creation of performance standards for protective equipment. NOCSAE embraces the opportunity to discuss the very important issue of protecting young athletes from injury and applauds additional support for concussion-related research and awareness efforts launched through today’s summit.

“NOCSAE funded and supported research has led to a greater understanding of sport-related concussions, but more work is necessary to make sports safer for athletes,” said NOCSAE executive director Mike Oliver. “New commitments by the NCAA, the U.S. Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health and Pop Warner are significant developments that we hope will lead to science-based solutions to help protect athletes from concussions.”

In June the NOCSAE board of directors will vote on a revised football helmet standard that will include testing procedures for specific forces directly associated with concussions. NOCSAE’s helmet standards have eliminated skull fractures in football by requiring the advancement of new helmet technology. If approved, this revised standard will be the first to include testing specific to concussion risk.

“Until now, science has not indicated an effective role for helmets in reducing concussion risk,” Oliver said. “While it is unlikely the concussion risk can ever be eliminated from sports, this revised football helmet standard is a start, and we look forward to additional contributions to the scientific body of knowledge that will drive the continued evolution of equipment standards.”

NOCSAE also welcomes additional efforts announced today to drive action on and off the field by student athletes, parents and coaches. According to the CDC Foundation’s Heads Up to Parents program, making sure equipment fits properly, ensuring young athletes are taught proper blocking and tackling techniques and demanding enforcement of rules that prohibit players from leading with their helmets to hit other players are important ways to reduce concussion risk.

OVERLAND PARK, Kansas – August 8, 2013 – The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) has released the following statement regarding equipment certified to NOCSAE standards and add-on helmet products.

“Products designed to be added to a football helmet are being marketed and sold; some are intended to measure impacts, while others are expressly marketed as improving a helmet’s performance. Some products claim the ability to protect against concussions. Regardless of the truth of such claims, the addition of those products to a certified helmet changes the model, by definition, under the NOCSAE standards.

“For many years NOCSAE standards have defined a helmet model as a helmet “intended to be identical in every way, except for size.” Any changes, additions or alterations of the model, except for size, color or graphics, even if made by the original manufacturer, require that a new model name be created and a separate certification testing process begin for that new model. This concept of limiting certification to a specific model is commonly found in national and international helmet standards.

• NOCSAE itself does not certify any product, it does not “approve” or “disapprove” of any product, and has no authority to grant exemptions or waivers to the requirements imposed by the standards it writes.
• The addition of an item(s) to a helmet previously certified without those item(s) creates a new untested model. Whether the add-on product changes the performance or not, the helmet model with the add-on product is no longer “identical in every aspect” to the one originally certified by the manufacturer.
• When this happens, the manufacturer which made the original certification has the right, under the NOCSAE standards, to declare its certification void. It also can decide to engage in additional certification testing of the new model and certify the new model with the add-on product, but it is not required to do so.
• Companies which make add-on products for football helmets have the right to make their own certification of compliance with the NOCSAE standards on a helmet model, but when that is done, the certification and responsibility for the helmet/third-party product combination would become theirs, (not the helmet manufacturer). That certification would be subject to the same obligations applicable to the original helmet manufacturer regarding certification testing, quality control and quality assurance and licensure with NOCSAE.
• Products such as skull caps, headbands, mouth guards, ear inserts or other items that are not attached or incorporated in some way into the helmet are not the types of products that create a new model as defined in the NOCSAE standards and are not items which change the model definition.”

OVERLAND PARK, KANSAS, June 4, 2012 – The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) issued the following statement after recent release of the 2012 Virginia Tech STAR ratings.

“The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) advocates ongoing research on athletic safety in order to gain a deeper understanding of protecting athletes from concussions. However, NOCSAES does not recommend that parents and athletes form decisions on the safest and most effective equipment based on any single individual data point, rating, or measurement, including the Virginia Tech STAR football helmet rating system. Doing so may lead to inaccurate conclusions that one helmet brand or model has a measurably higher level of concussion protection than another for a particular athlete.

“As stated in the STAR FAQ on the Virginia Tech website, the STAR rating system is ‘a theoretical calculation that is based on a probabilistic analysis of impact exposure and injury risk.’ This theoretical calculation relies on a single head acceleration criteria to predict the probability of a concussion, which is a complex event involving different and changing forces, linear and rotational accelerations, impact duration, player concussion history, overall health, helmet fit, and potentially even genetics.

“Additionally, and perhaps of most importance, is that this ranking system, to the extent it may be predictive, is limited to only starting collegiate players wearing an adult large helmet. To quote again the Virginia Tech website ‘it is not safe to extrapolate the findings to youth football helmets. The STAR evaluation system was developed based on the head impact exposure of collegiate football players.’

“There is no indication from the STAR system or published methodology that a large size in one model will test the same as a medium or small or youth size in the same model, and to assume that the STAR value will apply across the board for all sizes of the same model is not safe, and potentially harmful.

“NOCSAE urges parents and athletes to gather all the facts about football helmets and concussion protection from a variety of reliable sources. Athlete safety is too important to rely on only one partial measurement of helmet performance.”

“The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) is an independent organization with the dual purpose of setting standards for the performance of athletic equipment and funding research necessary to advance the science of sports. NOCSAE established the most rigorous standards for football helmet performance in the world, based on the best available science. Through our independent process, physicians, academic researchers, coaches, trainers and manufacturers come together to establish standards based on accepted science and reliable data.

“As a leading nongovernmental source for research funding in all sports medicine and science related to concussion, NOCSAE has invested more than $4 million since 1994 toward understanding sport-related concussions. NOCSAE standards address concussion protection to the extent permitted by scientific data, but that data does not yet support a concussion-specific performance standard for helmets.

“The fact is that there is no helmet standard available today from any source or in any sport that specifically addresses concussion prevention, and the development of a concussion-specific standard for any protective equipment requires substantial scientific support both that compliance with such a standard will in fact further eliminate or reduce the severity of concussions and will effectively do so without increasing the risk of injury in other areas.

“Because the biomechanical and physiological causes of concussion are complex and not yet well understood by experts, athletes and parents of athletes should be cautious about relying on any individual data point, advertisement or promotional material which could lead to inaccurate conclusions or even a false sense of security.

“While equipment certified to NOCSAE standards plays an incredibly important role in protecting athletes, improved protective equipment is not the only solution to providing better protection against concussion. Prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management decisions about when athletes should return to play are equally or more important, thus prevention can be enhanced by enforcing the rules of play in a particular sport.”

OVERLAND PARK, KANSAS, January 24, 2011 – The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) recently required football helmet manufacturers to submit all certification test data, quality control and sample selection documentation for all football helmets manufactured or sold within the past 10 years. All football helmet manufacturers have complied with the request. NOCSAE is an independent and nonprofit standard-setting body with the sole mission to enhance athletic safety through scientific research and the creation of performance standards for protective equipment.

“NOCSAE made this request as part of our ongoing effort to evaluate all aspects of the football helmet standard and evaluate potential changes to the standards relating to lower level impacts,” said Mike Oliver, NOCSAE executive director. “We are the only organization that brings together key areas of expertise to work together on behalf of athletes. Through our process, physicians, academic researchers, coaches, athletic trainers and manufacturers come together to establish standards that are designed to provide the maximum amount of protection to the athlete. In addition to our request for data, we have invested more than $2.5 million in concussion specific research grants and created a special committee of the nation’s leading experts from all relevant scientific and medical fields to help identify and direct specific research that will advance science and research in the area of concussion.”

NOCSAE is currently evaluating the information and has retained a third-party, independent auditor who is also analyzing the data. Manufacturer licensees are required to collect and maintain the requested data – as it supports the certification of equipment, including helmets, to the NOCSAE standard.

“Any change to football helmet standards must be based on science – not someone’s best guess. To change the standard to address concussions without needed scientific data would be irresponsible and could jeopardize the safety of athletes,” said Dr. Robert Cantu, NOCSAE Vice President and chair of Multidisciplinary Concussion Task Force. “NOCSAE has been a leader in supporting and funding concussion research necessary to answer those questions. Part of this effort is analyzing every piece of available data regarding football helmets – which may help shape potential changes to our standard to better protect the athlete on the field of play.”