Smarter kids are less accident-prone when they grow up

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A higher level of childhood intelligence seems to confer protection from injury in later life.
Previous evidence has suggested that people of lower intelligence are more likely to die young. A new study from researchers at the University of Bristol, England, suggests a possible reason. They have studied over 11,000 people in Scotland who were part of a large child development investigation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Early intelligence scores and the later risk of injury were found to be linked, even after accounting for factors like socioeconomic status and physical growth. The more educated the participant, the less likely they were to be injured as an adult. The researchers suggest various reasons why childhood intelligence and adult injury are linked. First, kids of lower intelligence are more likely to suffer injury when young and this may lead them to be accident prone as adults, perhaps through some subtle form of brain damage. Lower intelligence may also mean problems in processing information about one's surroundings; this may mean the individual is not as aware as they might be of potential dangers.

Source
American Journal of Public Health February 2007 Volume 97 number 2

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