Lay summary
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears are serious and common injuries affecting more than 5000 New Zealanders every year. The vast majority occur in young people, in sporting activities, and many are preventable. The substantial healthcare burden of ACL tears is known, but little is known about their long-term impacts. This research activation activity will conduct preliminary analyses and feasibility assessment of evaluating the long-term health, economic, and social impacts of ACL injuries, to inform health delivery policy and practice.
In this preliminary work, we will identify matched cohorts of otherwise similar individuals with and without an ACL injury, within the unique national ‘big-data’ resource of the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). We will assess the quality of the matching process using extensive diagnostic testing. These are crucial first steps in an economic evaluation of the potential impact of injury prevention strategies, and implementation and testing of cost-effective injury prevention measures in NZ.