Enhance the quality of athletics athletes’ environment by promoting health protection

ongoing

The general objective of the I-Run-Healthy project is to enhance the quality of athletics athletes’ environment by promoting health protection. This will be achieved by educating all stakeholders through a digital platform that engages with athletes and by promoting sustainable sports practises At a European scale, athletics cover 51 national federations governed by the European Athletics Federation (EA, https://www. european-athletics.com) making this sport a European intercultural sport whatever the sex, age, ethnicity, or socioeconomic environment. Engaging in athletics, while beneficial for overall health, can also lead to health problems that can impact athletes physically, psychologically, and socially, potentially affecting their performance, career, sustainable athletics and physical activity practice, and long-term well-being. Reducing health risks in athletics can start with identifying individual and environmental factors that increase risk for health problems and sharing this knowledge with athletes and athletics stakeholders. Reducing health risks in athletics can be done by implement health problems reduction strategies targeting different domains, and by disseminating knowledge on these measures. Adequate health literacy is essential for promoting healthy athletics activity, yet there is a lack of sufficient knowledge in athletics. This highlights the need for further efforts on improving education and awareness. Educating athletes and all stakeholders within the athletics community is a promising strategy to mitigate health risks, foster active engagement in health protection programmes, and ensure long-term health and well-being. The implementation of a digital health platform with athletics-specific training and health information is a promising self-paced education strategy as it has been shown to lead to a significantly lower injury incidence.