World Rugby and Prevent Biometrics have agreed on a three-year extension of the Head Impact Assessment (HIA) protocol that mandates athletes in World Rugby’s elite-level competitions wear Prevent’s instrumented mouthguards.
The mandate , effective since January, required a $2.4M investment in 2024 from World Rugby to fit and distribute custom, sensor-embedded mouthguards to more than 8,000 rugby players worldwide, plus staff teams with support staff to help operate the technology. The OPRO-produced mouthguards track linear and angular accelerations and trigger Bluetooth alerts when head impacts register above a certain threshold , flagging players to be evaluated for potential concussions.
The extension was first announced by World Rugby Chief Medical Officer Éanna Falvey at the World Rugby Medical Commission Conference last week.
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