Inequities in health care and survival after injury among pedestrians: explaining the urban/rural differential.

This study investigated whether rural/urban differences in injury mortality and morbidity are primarily due to medical care maldistribution or to other factors such as sociodemographic or environmental characteristics that are highly correlated with location. To separate incidence from case-fatality rates, the study analyzed the determinants of survival rather than cause-specific mortality rates. Using information from Florida traffic crash reports for 1988 through 1990, the study focused on Florida pedestrians hit by motor vehicles. It explores the effect of individual-level demographic characteristics, crash-level indicators of impact severity, and county-level measures of socioeconomic and medical care resources, on the odds a pedestrian survived an injury. Logistic regression analyses reveal the importance of both road environment and percent of the county that is rural. However, these analyses are not able to isolate the influence of medical care from the level of urbanization. Although the percent rural was statistically significant, indicators of the mechanical energy involved in producing the injury, posted speed, and a dark road environment were substantively more important determinants of survival.