Is the NFL safer than high school football?

SCIENTISTS ARE STARTING TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), even as more athletes say they believe they have it.

- - BY ALANA SEMUELS

What causes CTE, says Dr. Daniel Daneshvar, chief of the division of brain injury rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, is “the cumulative force that a person gets exposed to”—perhaps most infamously on, say, a football field.

Because CTE is caused by cumulative head impacts and not just one big blow, people who start playing football as kids—even those who may not play past high school—can end up with CTE. But while the NFL has made some changes to try and help players avoid repeated head impacts, advocates point out that the groups that operate organized football for younger players have done relatively little.

“Everybody in football is aware of what the NFL has done and has made an active choice not to follow,” argues Chris Nowinski, the CEO and co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, who has been talking for years about the need to better protect athletes of all ages from CTE.