State High School Sports Safety Policies

Preparing for an emergency should be the top priority for schools to ensure the safety of their athletes. Through the implementation of required policies and procedures, schools can be well prepared in the unfortunate event of a catastrophic injury.

At the Korey Stringer Institute, we have utilized best practice documents related to the top causes of sudden death in high school athletes to compile a group of policies that represent these best practices. These polices are relevant to the best practices developed for the top causes of sudden death in sport. Based off the “Inter-Association Task Force Document Preventing Sudden Death in Secondary School Athletics” document, the policies outlined on this website were evaluated directly from publicly available resources such as state high school associations and legislative websites.

Ranking of states regarding the implementation of evidence-based best practices for preventing and managing the leading causes of sudden death in secondary school athletics. State-Level Implementation of Health and Safety Policies to Prevent Sudden Death and Catastrophic Injuries Within Secondary School Athletics, the study which details the results, is published in The Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine.

Rubrics listed are from the 2022-2023 audit. 

Please reach out to KSI directly to receive the 2023-2024 rubrics.

2024 State High School Sports Safety Policy Evaluation

You can sort the list by ranking or alphabetically by state.

Rank State Score(%)
1 Georgia 93.67
2 Florida  93.0
3 New Jersey 85.0
4 Louisiana 80.0
5 New Hampshire 73.2
6 North Carolina 69.87
7 Massachusetts 69.4
8 Kentucky 67.75
9 District of Columbia 67.0
10 Delaware 64.59
11 Tennessee 64.55
12 Arizona 59.0
13 Rhode Island 56.18
14 Illinois 55.2
15 Texas 54.0
16 South Carolina 53.8
17 Connecticut 53.73
18 West Virginia 53.35
19 Washington 53.13
20 New York 52.75
21 Missouri 52.33
22 Hawaii 52.08
23 Ohio 52.0
24 Kansas 51.0
25 Wisconsin 50.63
26 New Mexico 49.9
27 Iowa 49.0
28 Alabama 48.33
29 Arkansas 48.15
30 Oregon 46.97
31 Utah 45.0
31 Pennsylvania 45.0
33 South Dakota 44.6
34 Oklahoma 44.5
35 Maryland 44.2
36 Indiana 44.0
37 Nevada 42.0
37 North Dakota 42.0
37 Vermont 42.0
40 Alaska 41.4
41 Michigan 41.0
42 Colorado 40.0
42 Idaho 40.0
44 Virginia 39.8
45 Wyoming 39.0
46 Montana 37.8
47 Mississippi 36.25
48 Nebraska 34.0
49 Minnesota 33.75
50 Maine 30.63
51 California 30.6