The study showed that the risk of death was 20 percent higher in small rural towns than in large cities for all types of injuries, from shootings, car crashes, falls, drownings and other accidents.
Meyers said cars, guns and drugs are the top three causes of injury deaths in the United States.
She said the risk of homicide is the main factor that most people use to determine whether big cities are safe. While it is true that homicide rates are higher in big cities, the risk of unintentional injury death is 40 percent higher in rural areas than in urban areas.
The total number of homicide deaths, on the other hand, is much lower than the number of unintentional injury deaths. The researchers analyzed nearly 1.3 million injury deaths from 1999 to 2006, according to a federal database created using national death certificate information. The researchers excluded deaths caused by terrorism.
After three years of study, they found that rural counties had a 22 percent higher death rate than urban counties. The most common cause of injury deaths was car accidents. In rural areas, there were 27.61 car accident deaths per 100,000 people, compared to 10.58 per 100,000 in urban areas.
The risk of death from firearms does not differ between rural and urban areas. However, for children and those over 45 years of age, the rural gun death rate is higher than the urban rate. For 22-44 year olds, urban gun death rates were higher.
The study was published Tuesday in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. The findings show the problem of first responder staffing in rural areas.
Despite the study's findings, which are contrary to conventional wisdom, emergency medical professionals are not surprised by the problem of injury deaths. Howard Mell, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians, said the key is how long it takes for trained doctors to get to trauma centers and operating rooms. And many rural areas don't have the kind of emergency medical facilities that big cities do