"As a spine surgeon at Vancouver General Hospital, the provincial referral centre for all spinal cord injuries in B.C., Dr. Kwon decided to conduct the study after witnessing the high number of injuries coming out of mountain-bike parks."
I agree. Even within those types there are some types of rides that are massively different.
In MTB you have XC (cross country) which can be more about distance and grit. These bikes are lighter and have less suspension because you don't typically do a 10 foot drop on one.
Enduro racing is what I think of as similar to skiing or snowboarding. You can go do the green/blue/black at a resort. You can also do the equivalent of taking a helicopter to the top of a crazy mountain pass and jump out. Then there is park stuff. Snowboarders might hop into a rail in the park. Mountain bikers might ride a wooden feature.
The point being it's important to distinguish whether you're talking about the danger of taking a flowy green downhill or the danger of going off a 20 foot drop or the danger of hopping onto a narrow piece of Park stuff that's 30 feet off the ground.
Because the injury rate of people on double black diamond runs in BC with 30 foot tall one foot wide wooden features is just not relevant to me because I am not riding that kind of terrain.
That was my first thought too. Certainly this must be skewed towards downhill? Going high speed into jumps that send you 5-10+ft into the air must not have good outcomes if you miss the jump or landing. Most of the rest of mountain biking is fairly tame in my opinion.
I'm very into cycling, and like casual mountain biking. I've tried downhill a couple of times and it feels way too dangerous.