Tackling Rugby ― What Every Parent Should Know

Every week young children are hospitalized on the playing fields of Britain. Yet the subject is rarely investigated, nor is there any concerted attempt to work out how to make sport safer. Using meticulous, peerreviewed research, the book sets out the true risks associated with the sport, raising uncomfortable questions for politicians and the educational authorities. Would parents be so willing to let their children play rugby if they knew that the average risk of serious injury over the course of a season could be at least 17 percent, or nearly one in six?

Allyson M. Pollock is Professor of Public Health Research and Policy at Queen Mary, University of London. She set up and directed the Centre for International Public Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh from 2005 to 2011, and prior to that she was Head of the Public Health Policy Unit at UCL and Director of Research and Development at UCL Hospitals NHS Trust. She is the author of NHS plc and coauthor of The New NHS: A Guide. She writes regularly in the Guardian as well as many professional publications. Website: http://www.allysonpollock.com/