Sound plays a significant and often poignant part of skateboarders’ relationship with their sport, a new study shows.

The study found that the rates of patients leaving before medically advised increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 721 million emergency department visits from 2016 to 2021, of which 194 million (26.9  percent) occurred after March 2020. Patients left before medically advised in 5.9 million emergency department visits during the study period—especially in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2020 and fourth quarter of 2021—for a 53.6 percent increase over pre-pandemic levels. The researchers noted that the increase could be the result of concern about COVID-19 infection and dissatisfaction with longer waiting times and other factors triggered by the surge in pandemic-related demands on hospitals.

Researchers stressed that taking a harm reduction approach does not condone nor subtly encourage high-risk alcohol use among college students; instead, this theoretical application allows for a practical approach targeting students’ attitudes, social norms and other protective factors known to reduce alcohol use. This approach would be specifically designed to address a population of at-risk students known to engage in harmful levels of drinking more frequently than their non-college peers.