In my talk, I focused on what is available in the literature and what has been previously presented on para athletes´ health. Solid injury and illness surveillance data exist from numerous Paralympic Games since 2012, as well as from a few prospective National monitoring programs. Most of my talk presented the Norwegian health screening and monitoring program. It s an ongoing program since 2011 and consists of an annual health screening and athletes´ weekly monitoring of injury and illness cases. The program aims to target best clinical care of the athlete to provide optimal training and competition conditions. I presented the program´s clinical benefits and exemplify those by presenting data collected since the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. To shortly summarize the current situation on health surveillance and monitoring, injury and illness risk seems higher for Paralympic athletes compared to their Olympic counterpart, and higher for winter than for summer sports. Para athletes might be more vulnerable to certain illness by the nature of their underlying co-morbidities, rather than the (winter) sport itself. For long-term success of ongoing health monitoring programs, athletes, medical staff and coaches all should see direct benefits (e.g. fewer health incidents, more and more effective training days throughout the year). Good monitoring data inform risk management at both an individual and a group level.
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