Prof Caroline Finch - Researcher Profile

Caroline Finch

Address

Monash University
Wellington Road, Clayton

Contact Details

Tel: +61 3 990 51388

Email: Caroline.Finch@monash.edu


Biography

From the elite to the petite – sport injury research with impact

Like many of us, Professor Caroline Finch is obsessed with sport – in her case, sport injuries among elite athletes, weekend warriors and children alike. Thanks to her, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) counts Monash as one of its four centres of excellence, researching ways to prevent sport injury and promote health among athletes. But she really wants to attract the attention of community sporting groups.

Caroline is director of the Australian Centre for Research into Injury in Sport and its Prevention (ACRISP) at the Monash Injury Research Institute. She collects and analyses statistics on one of the biggest causes of injury in Australia – sport.

“Our data shows that the number of sports injury cases is more than double the number of road injuries treated at hospitals,” she says, “and while the number of road injury cases has stabilised, the number of sports injuries is increasing significantly.”

Over one million Australians a year suffer a serious sports injury, she says. Sports injuries are the main reason why children aged five to 16 visit hospital emergency departments, and a major reason why the rest of us visit them until about age 40.

Her research team helped convince Cricket Australia that junior fast bowlers were at greater risk of injury than first-class pacemen like Brett Lee because they weren’t rested as often. The twisting and turning action of fast bowlers as they deliver balls at top speed makes them four times more vulnerable to injury than spin bowlers or batsmen.

Cricket Australia now limits the number of overs that junior quicks can bowl to cut the incidence of serious back and leg injuries, which were showing up in many young fast bowlers by the time they turned 16.

 

Caroline says it’s important to apply lessons learned at the elite level – which has the expertise and money – to community sport, where team doctors, physiotherapists and resources are scarce but injuries can be more common, even if not always as severe.

She says quality equipment, playing surfaces, techniques and support are just as important for reducing sport injuries at the community as the elite level.

The National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Football League, VicHealth, Sports Medicine Australia and insurance agencies are backing a major ACRISP project to apply lessons learnt about preventing lower limb injuries at AFL and community clubs.

“We plan to develop national guidelines to show every club in the country the kind of exercises and training their players should be doing to minimise injury risk,” she says.

 

She’s also working with social marketing experts in the Faculty of Business and Economics to find new ways to deliver messages that change behaviour. And the need for proper training is a message she wants local clubs to hear often.

Her research team previously spent two years tracking injuries among some 1500 hockey, basketball, netball and Australian rules players and found that the players who were fitter and more prepared were the least injured.

“In the old days, people used to say, ‘I’ve gotta play footy to get fit,’ but you can’t do that. You need to be fit to play footy, which is why pre-season training is so critically important.”

She says attempts to get footballers to wear protective headgear show how hard it can be to get a message across. After a biomechanist and a neurophysician told her in the early 2000s that helmets could reduce certain head injuries, they researched the issue together but found no one wanted to wear them.

“It’s not a just a matter of matter of proving that helmets work and making a rule to wear them. You’ve got to market the message and provide the right cues about why people should wear them.”

Caroline says that the IOC’s designation of ACRISP as one its four centres of research excellence is an acknowledgement of her centre’s ability to do research that can have a real impact on sport injuries.

“With its centres of excellence, the IOC is saying that remaining injury free is just as important as performing well. We were chosen because of our particular expertise in ensuring injury prevention strategies are taken up and understanding why people don’t always adopt them.”

 

Research & Supervision Interests

    Sports injury prevention

    sports injury epidemiology

Keywords

australian football, injury, community, australian football; injury prevention; evidence-based; sport safety, cohort study, risk factors, sports injury, muscle strain, glascow coma scale; limitations; review; trauma; triage, sports injury; population-based incidence; household survey; public health impacts;

Qualifications

PH.D (SCIENCE - MATHEMATICS)
Institution: Monash University
Year awarded: 1995
MASTER OF SCIENCE
Institution: La Trobe University
Year awarded: 1985
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONS)
Institution: Monash University
Year awarded: 1983

Postgraduate Research Supervisions

Completed Supervision

Student:
Braham, R.
Program of Study:
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HEADGEAR AND MOUTHGUARD FOR PREVENTING HEAD/NECK/DENTAL INJURIES IN COMMUNITY-LEVEL AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL PLAYERS - A RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL. (PHD) 2003.
Supervisors:
Finch, C (Main).
Student:
Eime, R.
Program of Study:
APPLYING BEHAVIOUR CHANGE PRINCIPLES FOR THE PREVENTION OF EYE INJURIES IN SQUASH. (PHD) 2004.
Supervisors:
Finch, C (Honorary), Wolfe, R (Associate).
Student:
Vu, T.
Program of Study:
Falls prevention in community-dwelling older people with co-morbidity: a targeted approach. (PHD) 2012.
Supervisors:
Day, L (Main), Finch, C (Associate).