One in seventeen teenagers has been diagnosed with a concussion

**In 2022, 2.3 million US children and adolescents aged 17 or under — 3.2% —
had ever received a diagnosis of concussion or brain injury.**

It is an adolescent number

Nearly one in seventeen twelve-to-seventeen-year-olds. Some of that is simply
accumulation — "ever" covers more years for an older child — but the jump from
2.3% to 5.9% is far steeper than the extra six years alone would give.

And the sex gap opens with it

Under five, boys and girls are identical. The difference appears at school
age, roughly doubles by 6–11, and is still two points at 12–17.

Whatever produces it is not present in toddlers and is present once children
start doing organised things — which is the shape of an exposure rather than a
biological difference.

What "diagnosed" is doing in that sentence

The question is careful, and the wording changes the meaning of the figure:

**"Has (child) ever been checked for a concussion or brain injury by a
doctor, nurse, athletic trainer, or other health professional?"** and
**"Did a doctor, nurse, athletic trainer, or other health professional ever
say that (child) had a concussion or brain injury?"**

**Respondents who answered "no" to the first were not asked the second, but
stayed in the denominator.**

So this counts concussions that were checked and then diagnosed — and
a concussion nobody took the child to be checked for is counted as a
non-event. The inclusion of athletic trainers among the professionals is
telling: it is an acknowledgement that many of these are found on a sideline
rather than in a clinic, and that a child with a trainer present is more likely
to be counted.

Which means the sex gap and the age gradient are both partly about **who gets
checked**. If boys' activities more often have someone on the touchline whose
job is to look for this, some of that 6.9% against 4.9% is a difference in
observation rather than in injury.

From **household interviews of the civilian, non-institutionalised US
population**, National Health Interview Survey 2022.

*Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MMWR QuickStats;
National Center for Health Statistics.*