Research Guides: Public Health 2: Case Studies in Public Health Practice: Finding Journal, News Articles & Statistics

Research Librarian for the Health Sciences, Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Pharmacology, Public Health

Hector R. Perez-Gilbe

He, Him, His

Email Me

Contact:

UC Irvine
Science Library
Room 232
Irvine, CA 92623
perezhr@uci.edu

(949) 824-6957

Subjects: Medicine & Health Sciences, Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences

Finding Articles - Using Databases

There are many different sources for finding information - these databases cover different content but include journal articles, conference papers & proceedings, book chapters & reviews, government documents from local to global agencies, public policy reports, statistical data, dissertations & theses among other sources.

* indicates restricted to UCI authenticated users

Agricola* Major database covering agriculture, food science and related topics from global perspective.
Agricultural & Environmental Sciences Database
Covers environmental science issues with heavy emphasis on the life sciences, risk analysis, sustainability, & water resources & policy sciences. Can search entire database or any of the 19 sub-files separately.
ArchiveGrid Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions of Primary Resources to ArchiveGrid.
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Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies. Contains broad databases available to historical research.
CIAO - Columbia International Affairs Online*
This database chronicles contemporary public policy by providing daily briefs, research studies, working papers, documents, data and other information to educate users about issues.
CINAHL Complete
The major nursing database covering journal literature - a lot of fulltext and many public health issues are extensively covered.
Proquest Dissertations & Theses Fulltext*
Index to doctoral dissertations and masters' theses submitted to the UMI Dissertations database from all participating institutions in North America with a growing collection of foreign content in 80+ countries.
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Contains fulltext to most dissertations from 1997+ and an increased collection of earlier submissions. This is an expanded subscription.
ELDIS
The aim is to share the best in development policy, practice and research. Browse more than 26,000 summarised documents from over 7,500 development organisations - all available free to download. Share your work with over 80,000 development practitioners. Prepared by the Institute for Development Studies in Great Britain.
Ergonomics Abstracts*
Spans the world of ergonomics and human factors. Also covers related material from psychology, physiology, biomechanics, job design, human-computer interaction, safety science, human engineering, medicine, occupational health, sports and transport.
GIDEON Interactive decision support system for diagnosis and reference in the fields of tropical and infectious diseases, epidemiology, microbiology and antimicrobial chemotherapy.
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The GIDEON database incorporates 327 diseases, 205 countries, 963 microbial taxa and 252 antibacterial agents and vaccines
Global Health on CAB Direct
A public health database emphasizing international health issues. Consists of the Global health current file (1973 to present) and the Global health archive (1908 to 1973), which also includes records from the British Bureau of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases up to 1983. 80% of the database coverage is from journal articles, but it also covers books, conference proceedings, bulletins, reports and theses.
Google Scholar Using the ubiquitous Google search features, retrieval will reflect journal articles, books & book chapters, government information and the UC eLinks will note if content will be available locally at UCI.
GreenFILE GreenFILE offers well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on the environmental effects of individuals, corporations and local/national governments, and what can be done at each level to minimize these effects.
Haz-Map Haz-Map (http://hazmap.nlm.nih.gov) is an occupational health database designed for health and safety professionals and for consumers seeking information about the health effects of exposure to chemicals and biologicals at work.
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Haz-Map (http://hazmap.nlm.nih.gov) is an occupational health database designed for health and safety professionals and for consumers seeking information about the health effects of exposure to chemicals and biologicals at work. Haz-Map links jobs and hazardous tasks with occupational diseases and their symptoms. It is one of the products and services made available by the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program (http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro.html).

Chemicals and biological agents in Haz-Map are linked to industrial processes and other activities such as hobbies. Occupational diseases and their symptoms are associated with hazardous job tasks and possible exposure to hazardous agents. Information from textbooks, journal articles, and electronic databases such as NLM's Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB®) is classified and summarized to create the database. HSDB is part of the TOXNET® (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov) system of databases related to toxicology and environmental health.

Some of Haz-Map's features include: text search capability, browsing by jobs, diseases, or agents, searching hazardous agents by adverse effects, searching diseases by jobs and findings, and automated searches of TOXNET. Definitions of technical terms are available by selecting hyperlinks to the glossary.
LexisNexis Congressional* Lexis Nexis Congressional provides information produced by or pertaining to the United States Congress from 1789 to the present allowing the user to perform in-depth research in public policy, historical, and legal areas of interest...
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Lexis Nexis Congressional provides information produced by or pertaining to the United States Congress from 1789 to the present allowing the user to perform in-depth research in public policy, historical, and legal areas of interest. The basic subscription includes abstracts and indexing for congressional publications, legislative histories, member biographies, committee assignments, voting records, and financial data and the full text of key regulatory and statutory resources. Provides full text for many titles, generally from the early 1990's to the present. Includes bills, laws, legislative histories, committee prints, House and Senate documents and reports, the Congressional Record, Code of Federal Regulations, and Federal Register. Includes full text of Congressional Research Service reports, 1916-present
Library Search
Library Search is a new search tool for books, articles, images, databases, journals, and videos that offers powerful search and display features. This includes the traditional search options of a catalog (such as looking up specific authors, titles, and keywords) and expands the types of resources you can discover related to your research.
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To find books for which you have direct access to either as an eBook or in print, please restrict your search to Library Catalog, and consider using the Advanced Search option. You can further filter your searches using the left side bar (e.g. by Availability, Subject, Author/Creator, Location, Date etc). The default for results is to Relevancy; however, that can be changed using the pull down menu on the left.
“Almost everything” searches beyond the UCI collections to include material available in open access repositories; however, please refer to Melvyl to search other libraries’ holdings for interlibrary loans. Library Search is not a substitute for searching databases to find articles, conference papers, and other non-book materials. The library is committed to maintaining access to those subject related databases for their unique search potential.
Medline Plus
A major medical encyclopedia with referenes to the professional societies and government agencies that may be involved. Links out widely to multiple sources. Highly recommended to begin research process.
Online Archive of California
CDL is pleased to announce the online publication of approximately 2,000 diverse graphic materials documenting local people, place, and events throughout California.
PAIS Archive Link*
The PAIS archive database comprises a retrospective conversion of the PAIS annual cumulated bulletin volumes 1 62 published 1915 1976.
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Subject: Politics -- Bibliography -- Indexes; Economics -- Bibliography -- Indexes; Social sciences -- Bibliography -- Indexes; Legislation -- Bibliography -- Indexes; Political science -- Bibliography -- Indexes
PAIS International*
The PAIS International database contains references to more than 460 000 journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, and more.
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Subject: Political planning -- Abstracts; Social sciences -- Abstracts
Policy Commons
The world’s largest discovery service and database of reports, papers, and other resources published by over 8,000 NGOs, think tanks, IGOs and research centers from across the world. Subject coverage is comprehensive: architecture, agriculture, business, climate, development, education, employment, energy, environment, finance, health, law, libraries, migration, inequality, investment, governance, industry, pensions, poverty, science, technology, trade, social issues, urban areas and more. It includes a Directory of over 21,000 organizations involved in public and social policy. Users can upload their own reports and links to resources, make lists and stay up-to-date by following searches, organizations and topics.
POPLINE
Your connection to the world's reproductive health literature
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POPLINE®(POPulation information onLINE), the world's largest database on reproductive health, containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues. POPLINE is maintained by the INFO Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development. (USAID).

POPLINE contains nearly 360,000 records and has been maintained since 1973 by the INFO Project (formerly Population Information Program). The majority of items are published from 1970 to the present, however, there are selected citations dating back to 1827. The database adds 12,000 records annually and is updated every Monday.

In addition to free text searching, the database can be searched by keywords from the POPLINE Thesaurus , a controlled vocabulary of 2,400+ terms used to index documents in the database.

POPLINE's special features include links to free, fulltext documents; the ability to limit your search to peer-reviewed journal articles; RSS feeds for topical searches; and many abstracts in French and Spanish.
PsycINFO*
“Contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports in the field of psychology, and psychological aspects of related disciplines including; medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law.”
PubMed@UCI One of the primary resources for Public Health. Remember to include keywords such as epidemiology, ethnology, and etiology.
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“PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources.” Please note, even though PubMed is freely available to anyone online, UCI Students, Staff, and Faculty should enter through the UCI Libraries site to take advantage of electronic resources provided by UCI Libraries.
Risk Abstracts is now part of the Agricultural and Environmental Science Database
User has access to over 1360 journals covering materials dealing with risk that arises from industrial, technological, and environmental conditions. It ranges from risk-related articles on public and environmental health to social issues and psychological aspects of risk.
Scopus
This rich database has more than 20,000 peer-reviewed sources in STM subjects from 2001+
Selected Water Resources Abstracts (1968-2001)
An online compendium that provides a searchable index of abstracts relating to water resources and water management.
Smoking & Health Resource Library
From the Centers for Disease Control
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The database contains abstracts of articles from medical and professional journals; books and book chapters; dissertations; reports; conference proceedings and conference papers; government documents from federal, state, local, and foreign entities; fact sheets and policy documents from U.S. and international nonprofit organizations; and other documents. New Citations added to the database in the last eight weeks are also available. New Citations include recently published tobacco-related articles from peer-reviewed journals of behavioral, scientific, and medical literature.
Social Science Information Gateway
Free database of over 50,000 Social Science Web pages and resources.
Social Services Abstracts
Covers mostly US experiences in social services and community outreach.
Sociological Abstracts: 1963-present*
Abstracts journal articles, monographs, dissertations, conference proceedings, and other research covering sociology, social work, and related social sciences. Also includes selected web resources.
SSRN: Social Science Research Network
SSRN provides access to the research publications of the social sciences by discipline, promoting interdisciplinary connections. Fulltext content, often considered grey literature containing briefing documents.
Sustainability Science Abstracts*
Database explores aspects of sustainable development, human population & demography topics, as well as societal issues involving natural resource management & conservation ensuring the attainment of human needs now & in the future.
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Coverage includes relevant papers, reports, books and reviews from standard peer-reviewed scientific journals. To ensure comprehensive coverage, material from conference proceedings and hard-to-find grey literature has also been summarized.
TED Talks
TED Ideas Worth Spreading - on a wide variety of topics by specialists who have explored the topic comprehensively and are sharing them in a variety of communications. Highly recommended. Focus in science, public policy, emerging technologies.
TOXLINE Contains references to the world's toxicology literature.
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Part of TOXNET, "a collection of toxicology and environmental health databases. TOXNET includes the Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB®), a database of potentially hazardous chemicals, TOXLINE® (containing references to the world's toxicology literature), and ChemIDplus® (a chemical dictionary and structure database)."
Urban Studies Abstracts* The most focused indexing & abstracting source of journal and related literature in urban planning and urban studies. Contains links to increasing volume of fulltext content.
Water Resources Abstracts*
Most comprehensive coverage of academic research in water sciences. Selectively included in the AESD database, but encourages more thorough searching and review in this database.
Web of Science* Provides access to the Science Citation Index expanded from 1900 to the present , Social Sciences Citation Index from 1900 to the present, and Arts & humanities citation index from 1975 to the present.

Peer Review

The criteria for participating in peer review suggests an open mind and objectivity. It also includes the ability to answer some of the following quedstions:

if a study was conducted, can it be replicated based on the information provided
was the foundation of the work ethically sound and based
can the article's data and methodology be described as accurate
how does research paper contribute to the overall body of literature on topic
is it in understandable, grammatical and correct English
are opinions and information properly and consistently cited
is there sufficient evidence for conclusions

Finding Newspaper Content

Newspaper articles will reflect journalism coverage written at the time and immediately following an event. It may be of interest to see how the media covered this for the community-at-large. You should determine what form of media coverage you are interested in and whether you want local or national or international coverage. The Subject Guide for News & Newspapers may be a good beginning source. In addition the following sources will be useful:

NexisUni
Formerly LexisNexis Academic Universe. Search under the first column, News and note the dates of coverage after you have selected the appropriate sources. This is a fulltext database with no images.
Access World News
News from the United States and around the World.

Sources for Case Studies

Sources for prepared case studies on different topics in public health of ten are released by Schools of Public Health and public agencies.

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
case studies on different topics, about different populations.
Columbia University School of Public Health
Some online examples of case studies.

InterLibrary Loan

If we do not have the book you need or the UCI copy is not available, initiate a request for the book utilizing MELVYL REQUEST by clicking on the REQUEST icon in MELVYL or clicking through the UC eLink and selecting REQUEST. This is also possible for journal articles that we do not have. It is not usually possible to borrow eBooks via ILL.

With the short academic term it may be best to find alternative content than depend upon ILL.