In a result that might surprise some observers, researchers have found that babies born in rural California counties are hospitalized far less than their urban counterparts.

Researchers looked at birth records for more than 6 million babies born between 1993 and 2005 and then compared those to hospital data for the same period.

They found that infants living in small rural counties were in the hospital for 370 days per 1000 infants in their first year of life, compared to 474 days for infants living in large urban counties.

The study, by researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, can be found here.