Table 1

Key features of the types of data sources for sport-related death

Data feature	Explanation of data feature	Surveillance system	Registry	Death records	Hospital records	Insurance	Workers’ comp/cover	Emergency services	Sport/club, specific	Government stats	Publicly available	Case report/series	Cohort study
Custodian	Who ‘owns’ the data?	Organisation	Country, state or organisation	Territory, state, county or city based	Hospital and pooled collections	Country, organisation, or company	Country, state based or employer	State based or company based	Sport, club or organisation	Variable	Public access of publicly reported events	Researcher/publisher	Researcher/publisher
Coverage	Is the data source broad or narrow in scope?	Population based	Population based	Population based	Service area	Insured members	Employees, on the job	Service area	Members only	Population based	Variable	Narrow: single case or case series	Variable and researcher driven
Case capture rate	Are the data inclusive of all cases?	Variable	Variable	Complete	Incomplete	Incomplete	Incomplete	Incomplete	Complete	Complete	Incomplete	Incomplete	Complete
Timeliness	How quickly is the data available?	Timely	Delayed	Delayed	Variable	Delayed	Delayed	Delayed	Variable	Delayed	Variable	Variable	Variable
Accuracy	How accurate are the data considered to be?	Accurate	Accurate	Variable	Accurate	Accurate	Accurate	Accurate	Variable	Accurate	Variable	Accurate	Accurate
Classification system	What system(s) used to classify injuries and causes of death?	Source driven	Source driven	ICD; COD	Visits; ICD; COD	Claims; ICD	Claims; ICD	Variable	Source driven	ICD; COD	Source driven	Medically defined and journal driven	Researcher defined and journal driven
Sport relatedness	Can athlete-status or sport relatedness be established?	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Variable	Yes	Yes
Exposure data/denominator	Are exposure data routinely collected alongside event?	Sometimes	Sometimes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes

COD, cause of death; ICD, International Classification of Disease.