Staff / A new study published in the online Annals of Emergency Medicine upends a common perception that urban areas are more dangerous than small towns.
“Cars, guns and drugs are the unholy trinity causing the majority of injury deaths in the U.S.,” said lead study author Sage Myers of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Although the risk of homicide is higher in big cities, the risk of unintentional injury death is 40 per cent higher in the most rural areas than in the most-urban. And overall, the rate of unintentional injury dwarfs the risk of homicide, with the rate of unintentional injury more than 15 times that of homicide among the entire population.”
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Analyzing nearly 1.3 million injury deaths that occurred between 1999 and 2006, the study determined that the risk of injury death was 22 per cent higher in the most rural counties than in the most urban.
The most common causes of injury death were motor vehicle crashes, leading to 27.61 deaths per 100,000 people in most rural areas and 10.58 per 100,000 in most urban areas. Though the risk of firearm-related death showed no difference across the overall rural-urban spectrum, they were significantly higher in rural areas for children and people 45 years and older. For people age 20 to 44, the risk of firearm-related death was significantly lower in rural areas.
