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When it comes to staying safe, there are several things people can do. For example, people can avoid bad areas in certain neighborhoods, decline drugs and alcohol and remember to stick to one's principles. Even though danger is everywhere to a certain extent, there are some situations that could significantly increase one's risk of getting hurt. According to a new study, two locations that people should avoid in order to reduce their risk of being shot accidentally are liquor stores and taverns in Chicago.

For this study, the researchers analyzed the link between being near a liquor store or tavern and the number of gunshot wounds. The team looked at data from 1999 to 2009 that occurred in Chicago. They focused on the census tract in the city and looked at the corresponding numbers of liquor stores and taverns. The team controlled for variables tied to gunshot wounds within each neighborhood. The team discovered that being near a liquor store or a tavern, especially in the West Side or South Side of Chicago, could increase one's risk of being shot by 20 to 500 times.

"It makes sense," said lead investigator Marie Crandall, M.D., associate professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "You're adding alcohol to an already volatile situation in a distressed community. If you light a match in the rainforest and throw it on the ground, the match will go out. If you light a match in a haystack in the middle of a drought, a powder keg will go off. These neighborhoods are powder kegs because they are challenged with high rates of unemployment, faltering economies, loss of jobs and institutionalized poverty and racism."

She added, reported by Medical Xpress, "We saw this incredible association between liquor stores and shootings in our most distressed communities. You are 20 to 500 times more likely to be shot if you are in proximity to a liquor store, in particular, or a tavern. In some neighborhoods, the association is higher than others."

The researchers believe that more needs to be done to help lower these rates. Crandall suggests that changing liquor stores to food stores within these neighborhoods could help reduce gun violence.  The study's findings were presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma.