The Higher Education Inquirer is calling on both the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to explain the suspension of the Concussion Assessment, Research and Education (CARE) Consortium, the largest concussion study in U.S. history. Since 2014, CARE has sought to illuminate the effects of concussion and repetitive head impact exposure (HIE) on student-athletes and military service members.
A Decade of Groundbreaking Work
Funded through an initial $30 million “Grand Alliance,” CARE enrolled more than 53,000 athletes and cadets and tracked over 5,500 diagnosed concussions across more than two dozen universities and four service academies. Its successive phases—CARE 1.0 (acute effects), CARE 2.0 (cumulative impacts), and CARE-SALTOS Integrated (long-term outcomes)—provided unprecedented insights into how concussions affect recovery, cognition, mood, sleep, and overall well-being.
The CARE study generated more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, influencing safety protocols, athletic training practices, and public health debates in both NCAA settings and the U.S. military.
CTE and the Need for Decades-Long Research
The suspension comes at a critical moment. Concerns about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)—a degenerative brain disease linked to repetitive head trauma—are rising. Because CTE’s symptoms often surface decades after injuries, researchers emphasize that only long-term, continuous studies can reveal who develops CTE and why.
Pausing or dismantling CARE risks losing continuity in precisely the kind of data needed to connect the dots between adolescent or collegiate injuries and late-life neurodegenerative conditions.
Collateral Damage: Workers Left Behind
The disruption of CARE has already produced casualties beyond lost data. At the University of Michigan, one of the leading CARE sites, about two dozen research workers were abruptly laid off. Without union protections, they had little recourse. This underscores how fragile large research consortia can be—dependent not only on grants and institutional goodwill, but also on a workforce often treated as disposable.
These layoffs raise troubling questions: If the workers who made CARE possible are discarded without warning, what does that say about the broader commitment to athlete and cadet safety?
Outstanding Questions for NCAA and DoD
The Higher Education Inquirer is pressing for answers:
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Why was CARE suspended? Was this due to funding shortfalls, shifting priorities, or political pressure?
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Will existing data remain accessible? The CARE Consortium has been a vital contributor to the Federal Interagency Traumatic Brain Injury Research (FITBIR) database.
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What about the workforce? Why were employees terminated without protections, and what obligations do the NCAA, DoD, and participating universities have to them?
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What is the long-term plan for concussion research? Without decades-long studies, the risks of CTE and other late-life conditions will remain poorly understood.
Big Loss for Athletes
If CARE is permanently suspended, the consequences will extend far beyond academia. Athletes and cadets will lose a vital source of protection, science will lose irreplaceable data, and workers will continue to bear the costs of institutional indifference.
The Higher Education Inquirer urges the NCAA and DoD to clarify CARE’s future and recommit to the kind of decades-long research that brain science demands. Anything less is a betrayal—to athletes, to service members, and to the very workers who made this research possible.
Sources
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NCAA. NCAA-DOD Grand Alliance: CARE Consortium. ncaa.org
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CARE Consortium. About the Consortium. careconsortium.net
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NCAA. NCAA and Department of Defense expand concussion study with $22.5 million. (October 31, 2018). ncaa.org
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U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command. Research Supporting a Lifetime of Brain Injury. mrdc.health.mil
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NIH. Concussion Assessment, Research, and Education Consortium (CARE) Study Data. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
