Purpose: The aims of this study were to describe general characteristics and needs of home health care, and to find the differences between home health care needers and non-needers. Method: In this study, 642 subjects participated who lived in Muan, Jollanam-do. Data were collected in August 2001 using a self-reported questionnaire. The questionnaire was a revised and simplified form of the Organization of Community Health System Program at the Seoul National University. Collected data were analyzed through Kruskal-Wallis test. t-test. and Chi-squire for cross-sectional analysis. Result: The average age of the subjects was 52.6 years and 33.3% of them aged over 65 years. Twenty six percent of them had chronic degenerative diseases. The percentages of hypertension patients and D.M. patients were 6.4% and 2.5%, respectively. The number of family members was 2.95 on the average, 2.19 in cases of families with the elderly and 3.33 in cases of families without the elderly. The rate of disability of the elderly was 10.5%. Marital status (p=.000), the number of family members (p=.000), education (p=.000), job (p=.000) and health insurance (p=.027) were significantly different between home care needers and non-needers. Home care needers had less living expenses (p=.001), more frequent hospital admissions (p=.004), higher chronic disease rate (p=.000) and more frequent visits to public health center (p=.027) than non-needers. Home care needers who wanted free service were twice as many as non-needers. Conclusion: Home care need was very high in rural areas and the needers had worse characteristics (low educational level. low income, no job and no family). Therefore, it is necessary to develop cheaper and more accessible services for home care needers in rural areas.