U.S. public health officials have long puzzled over a troubling statistic about infant deaths: Why is the rate so much higher in rural
counties than urban areas?
Similarly, in Australia, alcohol use is more prevalent in rural area than urban area [17].
This was done by using satellite - based night - light detection of urban areas, and more thorough homogenisation of the time series (with corrections, for example, for the tendency of surrounding rural stations to be slightly higher, and thus cooler,
than urban areas).
These areas have less vandalism and hit and run accidents, statistically,
than the urban areas - decreasing the need for this type of coverage.