Rural trend in lung disease heads wrong direction

COPD is one of the five most common causes of death in the U.S. The other four are heart disease, cancer, stroke and accidents. Of those five, death rates due to heart disease, cancer and stroke are higher in rural communities than in towns and cities, but are coming down for both rural and urban people. Deaths due to accidents, including drug overdoses, are increasing in both areas. The pattern for COPD is unique. Death rates due to COPD are falling in urban people, but increasing among rural people.It’s not clear why more rural people are dying of COPD. Several typical rural jobs expose people to very dusty or dirty air….farm work, mining etc. Even non-agricultural rural workers are much more likely to be exposed on the job to high levels of gases, dust and fumes (27%) than urban workers (15%).