City-country mortality gap widens amid persistent holes in rural health care access
04/12/24 at 03:00 AM
City-country mortality gap widens amid persistent holes in rural health care access
KFF Health News, by Jazmin Orozco Rodriquez; 4/9/24
The health disparities between rural and urban Americans have long been documented, but a recent report from the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service found the chasm has grown in recent decades. In their examination, USDA researchers found rural Americans from the ages of 25 to 54 die from natural causes, like chronic diseases and cancer, at wildly higher rates than the same age group living in urban areas. ... In 1999, the natural-cause mortality rate for people ages 25 to 54 in rural areas was only 6% higher than for city dwellers in the same age bracket. By 2019, the gap widened to 43%.