ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the problems and prospects of health and medical care in rural America, and summarizes the research literature produced in rural health care in the last decade. Rural health and medical care, as with rural living in general, is characterized by limited availability and access to resources enjoyed by non-rural residents. Recognition of the unique challenges the rural environment poses to health care professionals and policy-makers has brought increased attention in the past decade to the problems of health care in rural America. Problems in the delivery of primary and emergency medical care to rural populations have their genesis in the same sociodemographic and economic characteristics that have been described earlier. Economic survival in the face of cost containment and minimum occupancy standards has brought the plight of many rural hospitals to the fore of public and policy concerns during the eighties.
