Prepared by Control Data Corporation to help meet the U.S. Department of Agriculture's need for an assessment of rural health care services research and knowledge, this study constructed an inventory of rural health care services research; identified problem-oriented research of depth and quality for use in decision-making; and evaluated a selection of this problem-oriented research. The study defined and identified the characteristics of problem-oriented research necessary to support "social action" toward the understanding and operational knowledge of medical care delivery in rural areas. Evaluation techniques were then devised to help indicate the relative usefulness of the research to active improvement of rural health care services delivery. A data base was designed, constructed, and used for a knowledge assessment of ongoing research and research publications. The study concentrated on ongoing research projects and recent research publications contained in major national research information systems. This paper presents the: inventory and description of ongoing research projects, inventory and analysis of publications, evaluation of selected accepted research publications, knowledge assessment of ongoing research projects and of accepted research publications, comparative knowledge assessment of project/publications, and Socioeconomic and Sociomedical Indexes. (NQ)