Handedness, Hand Roles, and Hand Injuries at Work

摘要

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 paper has two parts. First, there is a review of the literature that discusses prevalence of hand injury, and the significance of hand roles and handedness in industrial in- juries. The second part represents and initial attempt to document the roles of the two hands in a particular industry, the metal manufacturing industry. The pu- pose of this survey of 30 different work stations in seven different industrial plants was to see whether there is a significant bias in terms of movement re- quirements for one or the other hand, leading to a possible different industrial plants was to see whether there is a significant bias in terms of movement re- quirements for one or the other hand, leading to a possible differential risk of injury for the left and right hands.