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My name is Alexa Rasnake, and I am a Master’s of Athletic Training student at James Madison University. I greatly enjoyed this study, as I have become very interested in air pollution and how it affects performance in athletes ever since the forest fires in Canada started this year that led to largely polluted air on the East Coast of the Unites States. After reading this study, I learned that amounts of air pollution that are well below the EU regulatory threshold can still have a negative effect on the performance and health quality of soccer athletes. This is concerning to me as a future athletic trainer, as I originally thought it was only extremely large amounts of pollution that would cause the detriments in performance and health on athletes in outside sports. As an individual, I do not monitor the air quality, however, as a future athletic trainer I will definitely implement an air quality monitoring system where my institution is, especially if I work an outside sport. In doing this, I will most likely have to make a policy and procedure handbook explaining how the outside sport’s games and practice plans will change depending on the local air quality. I believe making some form of chart stating how long athletes can practice outside in relation to a certain air quality index just as the heat policy chart is made, would be a simple way for coaches and other athletic trainers to use to plan their practices and games around the air quality. After reading this study, I believe that measuring the local air quality should be something that every athletic trainer who works with an outside sport should do. This is because one of the main domains of athletic training is injury and illness prevention and wellness promotion, and monitoring air quality is a major way to prevent illness and promote the wellness of athletes. Monitoring air quality should be a main priority of an athletic trainer to do on a daily basis just as it is a priority for them to monitor the weather temperature and status because just as these factors lead to decreases in health outcomes and performance in athletes, so does air pollution. Overall, I appreciate reading this study as I now know just how much air pollution really does affect athletes in outside sports, and how I as a future athletic trainer should implement an air quality monitoring system to ensure the safety of my athletes and to keep them performing at their highest level.
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