from treatment to prevention: global evolution of sports injury research in surveillance, rehabilitation, and risk management, 1990-2024

Background Sports injuries affect clinical care, rehabilitation, athletic participation, and public health. However, the expanding literature has become fragmented across injury surveillance, prevention, rehabilitation, and athlete health. Objective This bibliometric study examined the long-term evolution of sports injury research from 1990 to 2024 and identified implications for orthopedic and sports medicine practice. Methods Records on sports injury research were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection for 1990-2024. Publication output, collaboration patterns, co-cited references, keyword co-occurrence, and thematic evolution were analyzed with bibliometric mapping tools. The results were interpreted with emphasis on surveillance, prevention, rehabilitation, and risk management. Results The field showed sustained growth, with a marked shift from treatment-centered descriptions of common injuries toward standardized surveillance, prevention programs, return-to-sport decision-making, workload management, and athlete health. Highly cited work emphasized injury definitions, exposure measurement, epidemiologic reporting, and prevention frameworks. Recent keywords highlighted prevention, rehabilitation, concussion, anterior cruciate ligament injury, overuse injury, and monitoring technologies. Conclusion Sports injury research has moved from documenting injuries to supporting prevention-oriented and data-informed care. Future work should strengthen standardized surveillance, context-specific prevention, integrated rehabilitation pathways, and translation into training, school sport, and recreational physical activity settings.