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Lower IQs in Childhood Linked to Accident-Prone Adulthood
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 10 (HealthDay News) --The lower your IQ in childhood, the more accident-prone you might be as an adult. New research finds that people who had lower intelligence scores as children were more likely to be hospitalized with accidental injuries during adulthood. But experts emphasized the continuing importance of injury-prevention programs. "What I would hate to see happen is a shrugging of the shoulders on the part of the powers that be that injury prevention education doesn''t mean a ding-dang, it''s all predetermined by intelligence," said Dr. Michael Hirsh, chief of pediatric surgery and trauma at the UMass Memorial Medical Center and co-principal investigator of the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Worcester. "We''ve proven that nationally in injury prevention programs that if you hit the kids enough with injury prevention information in a sequential way, we see a difference in injury incidence, regardless of intelligence." Hirsh had not heard of any other data related to this subject, although he and his colleagues once conducted a study at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh that found two-thirds of pediatric trauma patients had a neuropsychiatric disorder such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. That''s not to say that people with neuropsychiatric disorders are less intelligent, he stressed. The authors of this study, appearing in the February issue of the American Journal of Public Health, looked at more than 11,000 people in Scotland who had participated in a childhood development study in the 1950s and 1960s. Of the total number, 1,043 had been hospitalized at least once as adults due to an accidental injury. Men were more likely to have sustained an injury requiring hospitalization than women. People with lower childhood intelligence scores at age 7, 9 and 11 were more likely to be hospitalized more than once for injuries in adulthood. According to the study authors, based in the United Kingdom, the results could help explain why people who score low on childhood intelligence tests are also more likely to die young. However, the more educated an adult was, the weaker the link was between childhood intelligence scores and injuries sustained as an adult. And better education could lower injury rates, the authors added. What are the reasons for the apparent link? Children with lower intelligence scores are also more likely to have injuries while children and, if the injuries involve the head, they may make accidents more likely in adulthood, the researchers suggested. And children with higher intelligence may also be able to process signals from the environment better, thus helping to protect themselves. More information Visit the Injury Free Coalition for Kids to learn more about keeping kids safe.
Last Updated: Jan. 10, 2007 Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved. |