Question: Car crash rates vary alot by region in the United States. The safest place to drive is
A: Masschusetts and the Northeast
B: Mississippi and the South
C: California and the West
D: Texas and the Southwest
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The correct answer is A: Masschusetts and the Northeast
ReplyDeleteReuters HealthDay published an interesting report on February 26, 2009 on a report in the CDC's 02/27/09 weekly Mobidity and Mortality Report which found that car crashes vary widely by region in the United States. Here is a snippet from the HealthDay article:
The federal government's push to reduce motor vehicle deaths appears to be having mixed success, with drivers in Massachusetts and the northeast getting the message loud and clear.
But drivers in southern states -- particularly Mississippi -- are still dying in higher-than-acceptable numbers, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The federal government's Healthy People 2010 initiative calls for reducing the rate of motor vehicle deaths to 9.2 per 100,000 people, down from a rate of 15.6 in 1998.
To see how well the program is working, CDC researchers analyzed data from the National Vital Statistics System for the years 1999 through 2005. They found that, while annual age-adjusted motor vehicle-related death rates overall were nearly unchanged, there were significant differences among states, U.S. Census regions, men and women, the races, and age groups.
Among states, the average annual death rate ranged from 7.9 per 100,000 people in Massachusetts to 31.9 in Mississippi. Among regions, the rate ranged from 9.8 per 100,000 people in the Northeast, to 19.5 in the South. The rate for men (21.7 per 100,000 population) was more than double the rate for women (9.4); the rate for American Indians/Alaska Natives (27.2) was nearly twice the rate for whites (15.7) and blacks (15.2); and the rate for people 15 to 24 years (26.8) was 74 percent higher than the average annual overall rate of 15.4 per 100,000 people.
In four northeastern states and the District of Columbia, the average annual death rate was below the Healthy People target of 9.2 per 100,000 population: Massachusetts (7.9), New York (8.4), Rhode Island (8.5), Washington, D.C. (8.4), and New Jersey (9.0).
The findings were published in the Feb. 27 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.