NEWS RELEASE

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Houston, TX 77204-5017 Fax: 713.743.8199

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 3, 2006

Contact: Contact: Mike Emery
713.743.8186 (office)
713.415.6551 (pager)
pemery@uh.edu

THAT’S GOTTA HURT! UH RESEARCHER
STUDIES INJURY TREATMENT FOR FEMALE ATHLETES
Sociologist Investigates Whether Pro Women
Competitors Receive Same Level of Healthcare

HOUSTON, January 3, 2006 – Women’s professional sports don’t garner the high television ratings that men’s athletics do, and most female athletes aren’t paid nearly as much as their male counterparts. Do such disparities also extend to the treatment women athletes receive for injuries?

That’s a question a University of Houston researcher hopes to answer with the help of a grant from the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (SCOEH), a research institution supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Joe Kotarba, UH professor of sociology, already has begun investigating the level of healthcare received by women athletes who have sustained sports injuries. He’s interviewed players and staff members of the Houston Energy women’s football team and plans to tour Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana to visit other professional sports organizations. Among the teams he will visit is the Houston Comets of the WNBA.

This study, Kotarba said, will have implications for occupational medicine, particularly as it relates to the treatment received by women. Previously, he has researched male athletes’ medical care by interviewing numerous professional athletes including baseball players, tennis players, professional wrestlers and rodeo cowboys.

“The goal of this research is to improve the availability of health and injury care for all athletes,” Kotarba said. “The public often does not think of professional athletes as members of the national workforce. Like every other worker in America, they also are entitled to sufficient healthcare treatment. Likewise, both men and women athletes are entitled to equal levels of care. This research will determine whether they are indeed receiving that.”

For this study, Kotarba and a team of students will be questioning female professional athletes regarding the types of injuries sustained on the field or court and how they’re cared for. He also plans to examine how team organizations provide healthcare and how female athletes develop healthcare support groups among themselves.

In his research, Kotarba will examine factors such as injuries unique to women and the importance of an organization’s resources for the quality of injury care.

“The more affluent the organization or league, the better the healthcare will usually be because it will be able to afford a full-time trainer, medical specialists, and therapeutic equipment,” he said.

SCOEH is part of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. Its mission is to promote health, safety, and well being in the workplace and the community in the southwestern states. NIOSH is the primary U.S. federal agency responsible for conducting research into occupational safety and health matters.

About the University of Houston
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