In another life, I am an epidemiologist...

At the FT (site registration required), Robert Hudson considers the economics of injuries in professional sports:

In fact, the sports science decisions best informed by statistics and micro­economics increasingly focus on preventing injuries rather than curing them. The process begins with information-gathering. For seven years, the RFU has been logging every injury in the professional game in an effort to gather enough data to identify trends reliably. The ­England and Wales Cricket Board and the English Institute of Sport, which looks after Olympians, now have similar rolling audits, although they are at an earlier stage of development.

The numbers are already being crunched – and proving useful in planning which treatments might best serve not just the player, but the team. A recent study of hamstring injuries found that every new hamstring injury costs the team an average of 14 playing days; an average recurrence costs 25 days. Furthermore, almost all the recurrences took place during matches in the first month after return, and after an hour of play. It quickly became clear that players who had sustained hamstring injuries should be replaced after an hour during their first few games back. Moreover, the two clearest risk factors for hamstring injury were age and a previous injury, and players who performed specific strengthening exercises reduced the incidence, severity and ­recurrence of hamstring injuries.