A new partnership is coming to North Texas, aiming to improve children’s health, activity levels, and well-being across the metroplex.
The Youth Sports Impact Partnership is a joint venture between SMU and Children’s Health through its Children’s Health Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine.
The Andrews Institute was created by world-renowned sports orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews, who has operated on some of the greatest athletes, including Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson.
This unique university-hospital partnership will use an evidence-based approach to improve access to youth sports, prevent injury, and share appropriate training and development practices.
The focus of the collaboration will be to resolve three major issues. The first will be how inequality impacts access.
Currently, access to organized youth sports is often limited by family income. In fact, the 2020 Census found that a mere 23.4% of children who live below the poverty line participate in sports.
In response to this, the initiative plans to provide low-cost programs to increase participation in sports in underserved communities.
The second focus will be on resolving the widespread inactivity of children. The CDC reports that fewer than 24 percent of children are physically active every day, leading to serious health problems like childhood obesity. Increasing overall participation in sports, as the partnership aims to do, could improve this issue.
The third focus will be on underinformed participants. Volunteer coaches drive organized youth sports, but according to the National Alliance for Youth Sports, only 10 percent receive any relevant training. Having underinformed coaches and trainers can lead to injury and burnout amongst young children.
In response, the collaboration will research sports medicine and athletic development to create a basis for a training and injury-prevention program for school and volunteer coaches.
Dr. Peter Weyand of SMU’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development will be leading the partnership’s research efforts. He spoke to NBC 5 DFW about the goal of the collaboration.
“The primary part of what we want to do is to bring people together that care about social impact and opportunities. We want participation not to develop great athletes but to have kids healthy. Regular activity drives many other health outcomes,” Weyand said. “I look forward to the opportunity to use science to inspire kids to be active, have fun and learn all at the same time.”
The partnership will also aim to have a single physical location that can serve several different communities. Weyand hopes that the partners will achieve this goal in about eighteen months.