Public Health: Reading Secondary Literature

Secondary literature in public health is structured in a lot of different ways and fills a different research goal than primary research. Some common things that secondary research often works to explore include controversies in the field of study, historical overviews of a topic, and comparisons of different methodologies or research approaches.

You will still frequently see some familiar sections bookending other sections which are typically organized thematically:

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Some other headings
• Conclusion
• References

Because secondary literature synthesizes primary literature, the paper will be structured around the different themes that the author(s) identified through their literature searching.

The Abstract, Introduction, Conclusion, and References sections usually include the same general information as in primary research articles. The Abstract will summarize the current paper, the Introduction provides the "why" of the current study and outlines its research questions, the Conclusion re-summarizes the study and identifies possible gaps and future directions for this topic, and the References lists all the sources cited in the current study.

Be careful with citing secondary research! If the review article you're reading cites primary research relevant to your paper, don't cite the review article. You always want to track down the original paper with the original claim. For one, it gives proper credit to the author(s) of the original paper; for another, it serves as a way to verify that the author of the review paper correctly interpreted the information they are citing.