Study of Injury-Related Deaths for Each State Shows Striking Pattern, Researchers Say
Researchers mapped out the rates of injury-related deaths for each state.
— -- Researchers have uncovered the most distinct injury-related deaths for each state in the U.S., finding how firearms, accidents and falls affect people in different areas.
The study published today in the BMJ Injury Prevention Journal looked at injury-related deaths for each state and found which states were outliers. For example, the study found that compared to the national population, Alaskan residents had more than seven times the risk of dying "in a transportation accident" that was not a motor vehicle.
North Dakota residents were more than twice as likely as the national average to die due to an injury from "machinery."
When placed on a map, researchers found patterns along geographic regions that were striking.
Seven states in the Southeast and Appalachia region had high rates of unintentional firearm deaths, ranging from twice to four times the national rate, researchers found. Those seven states were West Virginia, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina.
“These findings can help policymakers and public health practitioners identify injuries that, while not necessarily the most burdensome, warrant attention as the most distinctive injury death in their states,” the authors said in a statement.
Additionally, five states on the West Coast had high rates "legal intervention" deaths, where a person is killed by a police officer or an officer is killed in the line of duty, the study found. The states -- including California, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah -- had twice to more than triple the national average.
“In states where injuries are distinctive due to differences in policy or culture, the results could also be a useful tool for advocates who could assert ‘Not only is this injury a problem, it is a problem that we as a state are distinctively bad at addressing,'" the study authors said.
Guohua Li, professor of epidemiology and founding director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School, called the study "very informative and quite illuminating."
"It does add further evidence to previous research in which the states where the preference of gun ownership ... has positive rate of increased risk of suicide," said Li, who was not involved in the study.
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