The daily casualty lists of U.S. troops killed in Iraq mention a hometown for each person – places large and small, urban and rural, where flag-draped coffins return to grieving communities.

According to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologists, rural communities across America have paid a proportionately more costly price in the Iraq war with higher death rates of American military members compared with metropolitan areas.

Every death leaves a hole in a family and community, but the casualty rates from the Iraq war show that troops from rural areas experience higher death rates regardless of the cause, military branch or rank.

The study, published in the latest volume of the journal Demographic Research, used data on all U.S. troop deaths in Iraq from the start of the war on March 20, 2003, through Dec. 31, 2007, as well as U.S. Census Bureau definitions of metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.

While sociologists have previously looked at troop mortality according to demographics, no one had studied the geographic implications of Iraq war deaths on their hometowns, Curtis said.

‘The reason this was on our radar is that there are people studying rural issues and they talk about enlistment rates being high in rural areas. What enlistment […]