In this episode, Dr. Steffan Griffin talks about his research into ‘Rugby Union, and Health and Wellbeing.’ Dr. Steffan Griffin is a junior doctor based in London, pursuing a career in Sport and Exercise Medicine. He is a Sports Medicine Training Fellow at the Rugby Football Union, deputy editor at the BJSM, and a part-time Ph.D. student at the University of Edinburgh, where he is researching the topic of ‘rugby union, and health and wellbeing’. Steffan also works clinically with a range of elite sports teams including Chelsea Football Club, and London Irish Rugby Football Club. Today, we learn about the different forms of rugby, and Steffan elaborates on the findings of his research regarding the health and wellbeing benefits associated with playing rugby. What does the review mean to those who are interested in gaining the health benefits from rugby? How does this review affect policymakers? What does the review mean for researchers? Steffan tells us about the common misconceptions surrounding rugby, and how his research aims to change that, and he gives his younger self some advice, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast. Key Takeaways  “There are 10 million people playing the game rugby, and they don’t play this blind to the fact that there are risks associated with ” The different forms of rugby: Contact Rugby: It’s the “collision game” that you typically see when tuning in on a Saturday afternoon. Touch Rugby: It’s a glorified version of “tag” with a ball. Tag Rugby: Players wear a belt with Velcro strips, and a tackle is when players manage to grab one of those Velcro tags. Wheelchair Rugby: Nicknamed “Murderball”. “Our research found that all forms of rugby can provide health-enhancing moderate- to-vigorous intensity physical ” “Symptoms of common mental disorders were higher in professional players compared to general ” “People are well aware; rugby compared to other sports has a higher injury ”   “What the review isn’t doing is saying that everybody in the world should play rugby… It provides an objective piece of work that can help people make a decision based on evidence and not on emotion and ” “We need to try and move away from just looking at studies where all the participants are white middle class ” “One of the potential conclusions that a reader could get from this study is that non- contact rugby is the holy grail of rugby, but actually there aren’t any level 1 studies looking at the injury risk of ” More About Dr. Griffin: Dr Steffan Griffin is a junior doctor based in London, pursuing a career in Sport and Exercise Medicine. He is a Sports Medicine Training Fellow at the Rugby Football Union, deputy editor at the BJSM, and also a part-time PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, where he is researching the topic of ‘rugby union, and health and wellbeing’.  Steffan also works clinically with a range of elite sports teams including Chelsea Football Club, and London Irish Rugby Football Club.  Suggested Keywords  Rugby, Health, Wellbeing, Injury, Research, Review, Benefits, Risks, Sport, Policies, Union, Activity, To learn more, follow Dr. Griffin at:  Website:          Rugby, Health and Wellbeing Twitter:          @SteffanGriffin Review:           https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/23/bjsports-2020-102085 Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart:  Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy- smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:                                    https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927 Read the Transcript here: Speaker 1 (00:00): Hey, Steffan, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have yo