Gordon Defriese & Wilbert Gesler 
Rural Health and Aging Research [PDF ebook] 
Theory, Methods, and Practical Applications

This book describes a wide-ranging set of research approaches which have been used to study the health care problems of adults living in rural areas. It shows how these approaches can be used to define health care problems, measure levels of illness and health, and evaluate health care practices. For each approach, contributors provide a theoretical background from the health care delivery literature, details of how it can be carried out in the field, its strengths and weaknesses, and illustrative examples from both the literature and their own work.