The medical, nursing and psychosocial care situation at the end of life requires increased use of formal and informal networks as well as specialized hospice and palliative care structures within the social space by those affected and their social environment. Very large regional differences can be identified with regard to existing palliative care services. Rural regions in particular have pronounced gaps between the care needs of the population and existing services. Specific conditions of structurally weak rural social areas include the decline in infrastructural resources with an impact on health, a lack of access to healthcare services in terms of quantity and quality as well as socio-cultural aspects of rural life.

Healthcare and, in particular, hospice and palliative services are becoming increasingly flexible in terms of service systems, across traditional sector boundaries and differentiated in terms of services. This development is taking place in urban areas. The research project focuses on the perspective of structurally weak rural social areas with regard to the specific conditions, future care needs, but also the resources from the special life situations and network structures.

The aim of the HoPaSoz project is to analyze the existing infrastructures and framework conditions of hospice and palliative outpatient, day-care and inpatient care services specifically for structurally weak rural social areas within Germany using exemplary regions as examples. The research focus is on three levels of influence:

• Identification of socio-legal barriers in the service system for service providers and service recipients in hospice and palliative care,

• Exemplary social space analysis of the hospice and palliative care structure in structurally weak rural regions and

• Network analyses of innovative good-practice approaches from structurally weak rural social areas to identify success factors for hospice and palliative care structures.