Virginia Tech lab releases first safety ratings for youth football helmets

The Virginia Tech Helmet Lab has the instruments and the expertise to recreate the type of impacts youth football players might experience on the field, and evaluate how their helmets respond.

On Wednesday, the lab released their first

.

Steve Rowson is an associate professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics and also serves as the director of the Helmet Lab.

"Children are not scaled-down adults," Rowson told WDBJ7. "They have larger heads relative to their necks. Their necks are weaker and their brains are still developing. And through our NIH study, we are starting to learn how concussion tolerance differs between a kid and an adult. And we're using all of that information to rate and evaluate helmets for consumers."

Researchers in the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab began collecting data on varsity football players in 2003, and they issued their first helmet ratings in 2011.

Since then, they have steadily expanded to different levels of football and other sports.

They tested every youth football helmet currently on the market. Seven models, including at least one from each manufacturer, received the lab's highest rating.

But their work also revealed that a relatively simple modification could improve others.

"Modifying stiffness on these front pads can have a dramatic effect on performance," Rowson explained. "So replacing that with a less-stiff pad, could be a simple way to improve performance."

The ratings for youth and varsity football helmets, and headgear for cycling, soccer and hockey, are available on the Helmet Lab's website.

And there's more work ahead, with ratings for softball, baseball and lacrosse helmets, coming in the next year.