Do Helmets Protect Against Injuries in Alpine Skiers and Snowboarders?

A 2011 guideline from the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma recommends that all recreational skiers and snowboarders wear helmets (Level 1 recommendation); however, these recommendations are largely based on low-quality evidence from case-control studies.

Researchers retrospectively evaluated helmet use and injuries in 724 patients who presented to a single New Hampshire trauma center between 2010 and 2018 with a diagnosis including a mechanism of injury related to skiing or snowboarding. Most patients (65%) wore helmets and the proportion of patients using helmets nearly doubled over the course of the study, from 43% in 2010–2011 to 81% in 2017–2018. The rate of head injury did not change significantly over the study period (49%…