The Gutting of the U.S. Concussion Training Program
Forty-four states have laws and/or policies that rely on the CDC's "Heads Up" concussion training for youth athletic professionals. All of its staff were fired.
The bipartisan Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 1996 formalized the definition of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and provided funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Administration for Community Living (ACL) to research, collect data, and provide trainings on TBIs.
From 2009 to 2014, all 50 states passed some form of "Return to Play" laws, specifying how student athletes that show signs of a concussion must be evaluated before being allowed to return to the field. Enshrined in most state laws are training requirements for coaches and health professionals that work with youth athletes. In Texas, for example, coaches must attend a 2-hour training every two years in order to remain certified to coach high school sports, and parents are explicitly given the right to remove their child from play if they suspect a concussion. By contrast, Wisconsin coaches just have to sign a form saying that they received an informational pamphlet describing concussions.
Typically, concussion training programs are approved by a state's health department. The "Heads Up" training produced and administered by the CDC is the main certification program for such training in the U.S., and it is widely cited as one of the top options for coaches.
Forty-four states have policies that recommend or require the Heads Up training for youth athletic professionals. Arizona and Hawaii provide their own state-funded trainings, while Arkansas requires concussion training but doesn't specify one that coaches should take. Only four states don't require youth athletic professionals to have any training.
More than 10 million people have taken the CDC's Heads Up training, and it has ~190,000 reviews that are overwhelmingly positive (96.6% gave 4-5 stars). In the recently introduced South Carolina Bill 4298, "completing the HEADS UP online concussion recognition and management training" is specifically cited in the proposed legislation.
The Trump Administration placed all five CDC employees administering the Heads Up concussion training program on administrative leave through a reduction-in-force in April, 2025. This has caused widespread concerns throughout the youth sports industry, as prospective coaches who must by law take or retake the trainings wonder what will happen to the program. If it goes away completely, the handful of alternatives will have to be independently evaluated by each state health department, or states will have to fund their own programs and staff to comply with the law.
Beyond the concerns of coaches, TBIs remain a concern for the public at large. Each year, more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from TBI-related injuries and approximately 70,000 people die, with the highest incidents attributed to people over the age of 75. These numbers are themselves compiled by the terminated CDC employees, and it's now unclear who, if anyone, will track national TBI statistics.