There is growing concern that repetitive soccer headers may have negative long-term consequences on brain health. However, inconsistent and low-quality heading exposure measurements limit past investigations of this effect. Here we conducted a comprehensive heading exposure analysis across all players on a university women’s soccer team for over two calendar years (36 unique athletes), quantifying both game and practice exposure during all in-season and off-season periods, with over ten thousand video-confirmed headers. Despite an average of approximately 2 headers per day, players’ daily exposures ranged from 0 to 45 headers, accumulating to highly variable total exposure of 2–223 headers over each in-season/off-season period. Overall, practices and off-season periods accounted for 70% and 45% of headers, respectively. Impact sensor data showed that heading kinematics fell within a tight distribution, but sensors could not capture full heading exposure due to factors such as compliance. With first-of-its-kind complete heading exposure data, we recommend exposure assessments be made on an individual level and include practice/off-season collection in addition to games and competitive seasons. Commonly used group statistics do not capture highly variable exposures, and individualized complete heading exposure tracking needs to be incorporated in future study designs for confirming the potential brain injury risk associated with soccer heading.

人们越来越担心，重复的足球头球可能会对大脑健康产生长期的负面影响。然而，不一致且低质量的航向暴露测量限制了过去对这种效应的研究。在这里，我们对大学女子足球队的所有球员（36 名不同的运动员）进行了全面的头球曝光分析，分析了两年多的时间，量化了所有赛季内和休赛期的比赛和练习曝光，并有超过一万个视频- 确认的标题。尽管平均每天大约有 2 个头球，但球员每天的头球曝光次数从 0 到 45 个不等，在每个赛季/休赛期累积到 2-223 个头球的总曝光率变化很大。总体而言，训练和休赛期分别占头球总数的 70% 和 45%。碰撞传感器数据显示，航向运动学处于紧密分布范围内，但由于合规性等因素，传感器无法捕获完整的航向暴露。凭借首个完整的标题暴露数据，我们建议在个人层面上进行暴露评估，除了比赛和竞技赛季之外，还包括练习/休赛期收集。常用的群体统计数据无法捕获高度可变的暴露，并且需要将个性化的完整头球暴露跟踪纳入未来的研究设计中，以确认与足球头球相关的潜在脑损伤风险。