A new government study shows that rural Americans die more often from potentially preventable causes than their urban counterparts. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) studied preventable diseases from cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease in rural areas and compared the outcomes with city areas. The results saw that between 2010 and 2017, rural counties saw a widening disparity in preventable deaths from cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease, compared to city areas. Researchers found a “persistent and striking gap between rural and urban Americans for this (cancer) and other leading causes of death.”