The ''British Journal of Sports Medicine'' is a twice-monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering

sports science Sports science is a discipline that studies how the healthy human body works during exercise, and how sport and physical activity promote health and performance from cellular to whole body perspectives. The study of sports science traditionally inc ...

and

sports medicine Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. Although most sports teams have employed team physicians for many years, it is only since the ...

including sport physiotherapy. It is published by the BMJ Group. It was established in 1964 and the

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

from 2008 to 2020 was Karim M. Khan (

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

Jonathan Drezner Jonathan A. Drezner is an American sport and exercise medicine physician, currently editor in chief of the ''British Journal of Sports Medicine''. In both clinical practice and research he has a strong interest in sports cardiology. He is a f ...

(University of Washington) has been editor-in-chief since January 1, 2021.

Abstracting and indexing

According to the ''

Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collec ...

'', the journal has a 2021

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ...

of 18.473.

International Olympic Committee consensus statements

Since 2009, the journal has partnered with the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

to produce regular consensus statements regarding important issues in sports injury prevention and elite sport. Some of the recent examples include Consensus Statements on

concussions in sport Concussions, a type of mild traumatic brain injury, are a frequent concern for those playing sports, from children and teenagers to professional athletes. Repeated concussions are a known cause of various neurological disorders, most notably chr ...

(the "Berlin guidelines"),

relative energy deficiency in sport Relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) is a syndrome in which disordered eating (or ''low energy availability''), amenorrhoea/ oligomenorrhoea (in women), and decreased bone mineral density ( osteoporosis and osteopenia) are present. It is c ...

, the relationship between training load and injury, mental health issues in athletes, and methods for injury and illness surveillance. These statements can assist in guiding clinicians.

Controversies

In October 2018, over 170 academics signed a letter to the journal complaining after it ran an opinion piece by

Aseem Malhotra Aseem Malhotra is a British cardiologist, public health campaigner, author, and advocate against the use of COVID vaccines. He campaigns for people to reduce sugar in their diet, promotes a low-carb and high-fat diet, and encourages the reduct ...

. The group argued that the article made the "misleading and wrong" statement that saturated fat did not cause

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, hea ...

Fiona Godlee Fiona Godlee (born August 4, 1961) was editor in chief of '' The British Medical Journal'' from March 2005 until 31 December 2021; she was the first female editor appointed in the journal's history. She was also editorial director of the other jo ...

, editor-in-chief of ''

The BMJ ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...

'', defended the journal's right to challenge "the status quo in some settings". The IOC consensus statements are also not without controversy, with some writers accusing them of excessive conflict of interest. Another conflict of interest was raised by Pielke et al. about the accuracy of a study published in the journal later used in the drafting of

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

regulations on permitted testosterone levels for female athletes. A former editor, Paul McCrory, was found to have plagiarised one of more articles he wrote in the journal around 2005, forcing one retraction and public criticism of the governance of the journal during this period.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://bjsm.bmj.com/ Sports medicine journals Publications established in 1964 BMJ Group academic journals English-language journals Semi-monthly journals Sports medicine in the United Kingdom