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Active Projects

The Football Players Health Study leads efforts to develop and support innovative research that has the potential to impact the health of current, former, and future NFL players. These initiatives include questionnaires for former players and other studies conducted by researchers across Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals to develop diagnostics, devices, and interventions.

Health and Wellness

Health and Wellness Initiatives
First Health and Wellness Questionnaire (Q1) Our First Health and Wellness Questionnaire (Q1) was made available to all former NFL players in early 2015 and remains open to participation today. The goal of this questionnaire is to collect information on the total group, or cohort, of former professional NFL players to better understand the health impact of a professional football career.

The questionnaire collects information on demographic characteristics, health conditions, physical function and ability, and mental wellbeing. To date, over 4,400 former players have participated, making the Football Players Health Study the largest study of living former players. This questionnaire is advancing our overall understanding of player health while also providing important baseline data for the development of further research.

The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.
Health Check-Ins & Lifecourse Questionnaires Health Check-Ins
Former players will be invited to complete a general health assessment every two years after completing Q1. The questionnaire collects information on demographic characteristics, health conditions, physical function and ability, and mental wellbeing. Two years later they will be invited to do this again after completing the first health check-in. These health check-ins will help us examine how player health changes over time.

The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.

Lifecourse Questionnaires
These questionnaires will investigate how additional football-related and other lifestyle risk factors impact health. It includes a variety of questions relating to a player’s health, playing history, habits, as well as their perspectives on their lives and the world. Former player can complete these questionnaires after finishing Q1.

The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.
Remote, Algorithm-Based Management Program for Hypertension Control
Summary This multi-center randomized controlled study has two areas of focus, both of which include former NFL players who have uncontrolled hypertension. One group will undergo the intervention with the Remote Hypertension Program and the other will undergo standard care. After six months, participants randomized to the control group will be offered the opportunity to undergo the intervention as a cross over. This study will also include wearable technology to monitor activity and sleep data with the effects of the intervention.

The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.
In-person Assessment Control Cohort: Brother-Player Data Pairing
Summary Brothers of former NFL players who have completed our In-person Assessment Study will be invited to participate in an abbreviated 1.5-day assessment in Boston. Assessments will include PET and MRI scans, as well as, cardiac, neurological, and physical function testing.
Family Experiences Managing Football Lives (FEM-FL)
Summary FEM-FL is a pilot research initiative designed to study the health and wellness of individuals currently partnered with former or active football players. This remote, web-based study is based on the premise that an NFL career can affect the lives of families, and the physical and mental health of NFL player partners, as well their educational and career trajectories.

Early Aging in Former NFL Players

Overview: Early Aging Research
Summary In conjunction with anecdotal evidence from former players and their clinicians, preliminary data collected by our researchers suggest that NFL players age prematurely physically and psychologically. This can lead to significant reductions in their quality of life, healthspan (years spent without disease or disability) and lifespan (length of life). The primary objective of our early aging program will be to characterize the magnitude, clinical relevance, and underlying mediators of early aging in former NFL players and to develop interventions. We are also studying multi-organ premature aging to establish biomarkers that identify early aging phenotypes in former NFL players.


The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.
Biorepository
Summary Our team will collect pre-clinical and clinical biomarker and physiologic functional endpoints from participants. Genetic, metabolic, endocrine/hormonal and other data collected from former NFL players and from matched friend and brother controls will be aggregated to detect objective evidence of early aging.

The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.
Mini In-Person Assessments (IPA)
Summary From 2017 to 2021, more than 100 former NFL players came to Boston to undergo a series of tests and studies as part of our In-Person Assessment Study. (link to article or website section.) Currently, our research team is is conducting “Mini-IPA” protocols with an emphasis on specific phenotypic hypotheses to establish objective measures that will serve as targets for interventional studies. These mini-IPAs will focus on physiologic perturbation-based measures as our aging experts have identified an attenuated response to stress provocation as the hallmark of aging.

The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.
Shockwave and Protein Rich Plasma Intervention for Management of Post-Traumatic Knee Osteoarthritis
Summary This intervention study investigates methods to improve function and pain reduction following ACL injury for those who have symptomatic post-traumatic osteoarthritis of the knee. This project builds on previous work that documented benefits of platelet rich plasma (PRP) and shockwave therapy (SWT) in the management of osteoarthritis. We have designed a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects of a single PRP injection, combined with three weekly sessions of. We hypothesize that compared to sham or placebo condition, participants randomized to the PRP and PRP+SWT intervention will have improved function and increased pain relief with greatest gains observed in the PRP+SWT treatment cohort.

The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.

Brain Function

Poly-N-Acetyl Glucosamine (PNAG), Vaccination for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Principal Investigators Michael Whalen, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Colette Cywes-Bentley, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Summary This study proposes to examine the potential role for bacterial products in the brain, such as Poly N-Acetyl Glucosamine (PNAG), to promote neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s disease, in people with concussion or traumatic brain injury. These bacterial fragments may promote brain inflammation and deposition of amyloid beta, a key driver of Alzheimer’s disease, in brain after concussions. If so, therapies such as PNAG, which are directed at bacterial cell membrane fragments, may alleviate cognitive dysfunction in people with one or more concussions and who develop cognitive impairment.

Pain and Mobility

Hydrogel for Intra-Articular Delivery and Preventing Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis (PTOA)
Principal Investigators Jeffrey Karp, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Nitin Joshi, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Joerg Ermann, MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Summary This study proposes the development of a treatment for post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA). The study aims to maximize the joint residence time of a mechanically stable hydrogel platform and to demonstrate that selectively targeting genes through an intra-articular, mechanically stable delivery platform could be an effective approach for blocking the degenerative PTOA process following joint injury. Investigators expect that this research will have a paradigm-shifting impact.

Collaborations

University of Pittsburgh Brain Health Initiative (BHI) Collaboration
Summary The Football Players Health Study at Harvard University is collaborating with the University of Pittsburgh Brain Health Initiative to strengthen and support active projects at both institutions. This partnership will accelerate discoveries about the long-term impact of contact sports and brain trauma on players. Initial collaborative work has aligned several planned BHI assessments with Football Players Health Study In-Person-Assessments (IPA) for future analyses of common measures. The Football Players Health Study team will lead recruitment outreach to former players.
Characterizing Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in American-Style Football Players
Summary Chronic inflammation is a well-established cause and/or contributor to multiple forms of chronic disease. Oxidative stress (OS), the imbalance between the impact of circulating free radicals and counter-regulatory antioxidant molecules, is a critical trigger for inflammation. While OS develops transiently after acute bouts of exercise and may drive training adaptations, unresolving OS and chronic inflammation may negatively impact both short-term athletic performance and long-term health. This project aims to characterize OS and inflammation among healthy active NFL players, former NFL players, and among individuals with and without key chronic afflictions that highly impact former NFL players. We anticipate that this initial work will catalyze the subsequent exploration of intra- and post-career interventions geared toward minimizing OS, and that these will ultimately optimize on-field performance and post-career, long-term health. Our established relationship with Orreco, an industry partner with expertise in bio-analytics for elite athletes, will uniquely facilitate the critical work needed to characterize OS kinetics and the role of OS in the development of both adaptive and maladaptive phenotypes.

The first step for our study team to consider your participation is to fill out our contact form.