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All 50 U.S. states have laws dealing with youth concussions. In Canada, Ontario became the first on Tuesday by passing Rowan’s Law in memory of 17-year-old Rowan Stringer, who died in 2013 after suffering two concussions in less than a week on the rugby pitch.

The Ontario legislation mandates the creation of a committee to determine how best to act on the 49 recommendations from the Rowan Stringer coroner’s inquest.

Qualtrough said the harmonized approach announced Thursday does not preclude provinces or territories from passing their own legislation or policy. In fact, she applauded Rowan’s Law and Quebec’s youth concussion action plan, which was released last December.

The main objective of working together is to ensure no jurisdiction gets left behind.

“I think of the parents who learn their child had a concussion, and then it’s discovered it’s a third one and the first two weren’t addressed,” Qualtrough said. “Kids are really getting hurt, and they’re getting injured when this is an injury that we could manage significantly better than we do right now.”

Ricardo Miranda, Alberta’s minister of culture and tourism, said he was thrilled to see the provinces and territories working together on a vital public health issue.

“We can develop an Alberta-based solution, but one that also takes into account that we want to co-ordinate with other jurisdictions so we can have common ground.”

Doctors say that when it comes to safety, a formal concussion strategy is every bit as important as a helmet. Studies show concussions are three to six times more likely to be detected in an environment with a protocol in place. And the concussions that cause the most damage tend to follow the ones that go undetected when the brain is not given the proper time to heal and rest.