Handedness, hand roles, and hand injuries at work

Hand injuries form a significant proportion of all workplace injuries. They are costly to treat, and lead to significant loss of time at work. This pa per has two parts. First, there is a review of the literature that discusse s prevalence of hand injury, and the significance of hand roles and handedn ess in industrial injuries. The second part represents an initial attempt t o document the roles of the two hands in a particular industry, the metal m anufacturing industry. The pur pose of this survey of 30 different work sta tions in seven different industrial plants was to see whether there is a si gnificant bias in terms of movement requirements for one or the other hand, leading to a possible differential risk of injury for the left and right h ands. Overall, there was no clear bias favoring the right hand in activitie s assigned to the hands in seven different movement categories (MTM). Howev er, the location of emergency controls favored the right hand unequivocally . The implications of biases favoring the left/right hand for safety of mac hine operation are discussed in the light of current findings on left/right hand performance in right- and lefthanders. (C) 2000 National Safety Counc il and Elsevier Science Ltd.