1 in 4 NFL players diagnosed with CTE after death

Aug 28

This article was initially published in the 8/27/26 edition of our Concussion Update newsletter; please consider subscribing.

A study published this Tuesday in the British Medical Journal has triggered a wave of media coverage and conversation; researchers Daniel H Daneshvar et al. found that 1 in 4 NFL players who died in a recent six-year period (2016-2021) had the brain disease CTE. The rate of CTE in this group, 24.5%, is based on simple math: 215 of the 878 players who died during the six years had CTE. The incidence may actually be higher. The brains of 73% of this group were not available to be evaluated, so the “possible CTE prevalence at death” ranged between 24.5% and 97.7%.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease that can only be definitely diagnosed by a neuropathological evaluation of the brain after death. CTE is associated with repetitive head impacts and total cumulative impact; the study authors did not mention concussion. CTE is vanishingly rare in community populations without exposure to repetitive head impacts, between 0% and 1.3%.

The study has spurred numerous articles: a New York Times article summarizing the study, including what this extreme occupational hazard means for the NFL, and an article in The Washington Post pointing out an important caveat mentioned by the study’s lead author: “Daneshvar cautioned against applying that number to living players.‘This isn’t looking at active players,’ he said. ‘This is people at the end of their lives. And so we can’t directly extrapolate from this to living current players or even living retired players.’” Other articles discuss what these study findings mean for current NFL players; what this means for our culture of consuming NFL games as entertainment; what it means for youth football; and what it means for decisions families have to make. In the next few paragraphs, we’ll explain the basics of the study, and then discuss the implications for youth football.

The study looked at athletes who had played at least one NFL game and who had died between 2008 and 2021; this was 1,712 former NFL players, and 338 were brain donors whose brains underwent neuropathological evaluation. Since there was a significant increase in brain donations in recent years, the study authors examined separately the group who died during the last six years of the study, from 2016 to 2021. For this group, 878 players died, 236 donated their brains, and 215 of the brain donors had CTE. So the math is simple: we know that 215 of the 878 NFL players who died in these six years had CTE, or 24.5%.

Another objective of the study was to “examine the association between CTE severity and risk of dementia.” The authors found that “stage IV CTE was associated with a 44% elevated risk of dementia among donors.” For CTE stages I-III, they did not find an association between CTE and dementia, after using statistical analysis to account for multiple factors, such as age of death, first exposure to tackle football, and health issues such as sleep apnea, hypertension, and substance abuse.

Concussion Alliance notes that studies have found that exposure to repetitive head impacts in cohorts of former professional contact sport athletes (for example, in soccer and international rugby union) is associated with a significantly elevated risk of developing neurologic diseases that can be diagnosed during life, such as dementia, Parkinson’s Disease, and motor-neuron disease.

In terms of youth sports, The New York Times published the article “Your Child Plays Football. How Can You Minimize Risk of C.T.E.? Researchers say it’s all about reducing the total number of blows to the head.” According to The New York Times author John Branch, “there is a growing list” of individuals who started playing football early (as young as 6) and who died of CTE in their teens and twenties. Branch notes that brain researchers recommend playing flag football (instead of tackle football), playing other low-contact sports, or delaying when your child starts tackle football. Limiting tackling in football practice is another recommendation. According to Branch, “Researchers said that no helmet or helmet cover, mouth guard, neck equipment, supplement or medication has proved to reduce C.T.E. risk, despite any marketing claims.”

Concussion Alliance notes that while CTE is associated with repetitive head impacts, not concussions, we know that parents are also thinking about concussions. We want to remind our audience that Guardian Caps designed for youth (including high school football players) do not reduce concussion risk. Additionally, the Q-collar does not prevent concussions.