News Story: Left vs. Right

Focus: People who are left-handed have a greater chance of dying from injuries and accidents than right-handed people

Visuals: Bar graph of statistics comparing right-handed and left-handed people. Possibly a diagram showing how engineering of a car or piece of machinery favors right-handed people

People who are left-handed have a greater chance of dying from injuries and accidents than right-handed people, according to a study in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.

The study found that left-handed people are four times more likely to die from driving injuries and six times more likely to die from accidents of all kinds.

Researchers used the death certificates of 987 people in two Southern California counties and the responses to mailed inquiries about the subjects’ dominant hands to compare the death rates between left-handed individuals and right-handed ones.

According to the study, left-handed people constitute 10 percent of the U.S. population.

The fact that left-handed people are a minority is a key reason for their higher accident and death rates, Diane Halpern, California State University at San Bernardino psychology professor and co-conductor of the study, said.

“Almost all engineering is geared to the right hand and right foot,” Halpern said. “There are many more car and other accidents among left-handers because of their environment.”

The average age at death for right-handed people is 75, while for left-handed people the average is 66, according to the study. Right-handed women generally live six years longer than left-handed women, while right-handed men live 11 years longer than left-handed men.

Halpern said that despite the statistics, the study does not suggest that being left-handed dooms a person to an earlier death.

“It’s important that mothers of left-handed children not be alarmed and not try to change which hand a child uses,” she said. “There are many, many old left-handed people.”

Halpern said it is necessary to remember that the study did not take into account other determining factors in an individual’s death, such as personal fitness.

She said, “It should not, of course, be used to predict the life span of any one individual.”