Assignment #5

JOUR 3001
Assignment #5
Lee Pruitt

Left-handed people die younger

Why are elderly people predominately right-handed?

According to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine left-handed people are more likely to die early of accidents or natural causes than right-handed people.

Psychology professor Diane Halpern of California State University at San Bernardino and University of British Columbia researcher Stanley Coren used 987 deceased persons in two Southern California counties as subjects for their research. They found out which hand was the dominant one by corresponding with the relatives of the deceased.

The researchers found a marked difference in the average age at death between right-handed people and left-handed people.

“The results are striking in their magnitude,” Halpern said.

According to Halpern and Coren left-handed people represent 10 percent of the U.S. population and die at age 66, on average. On the other hand, right-handed people live to an average age of 75. The report gave no theories as to why this is the case.

Halpern and Coren found that left-handed people are four times more likely to die from driving related accidents than right-handed people and six times more likely to die from accidents of any kind.

“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.”

For years researchers knew there were fewer old left-handed people than right-handed people. At first it was believed this was because in the early part of the 20th century left-handed children were trained to use their right hand as the dominant hand. However, it has been determined that this is not the case. There are in fact fewer left-handed people than right-handed people.

Halpern says her study should not be interpreted with too much gravity and mothers should not try to train their left-handed children to be right-handed.

Speaking about her study Halpern said, “It should not, of course, be used to predict the life span of any one individual. It does not take into account the fitness of any individual.”