Public Health: Journal Articles
Important Update
New Web of Science Interface
The Web of Science series of databases has recently unveiled a new interface with updated functionality. This is a change that has been in the works for a while; you can read about the transition in this blog post from the publisher Clarivate. You can also take a look at the release notes for each new update to get a more in-depth look at what has been done. Don't hesitate to reach out to me with questions.
Medical and Health Studies Databases
- PubmedThe main source for medical literature.
- MedlineUses the familiar EBSCO itnerface for searching the Pubmed database.
- CINAHL PlusThis is the major nursing database. Often the resources available here can be more accessible than those in Pubmed.
- Health Source -- Consumer EditionDatabase with health information in popular journals.
- Health Source -- Nursing/Academic EditionMore scholarly information than in the consumer edition, but more accessible than Pubmed.
- Alt HealthWatchDatabase of periodicals that deal with alternative medicine, dietary supplements, and traditional therapies.
Other Useful Databases
These databases provide good information for many of the subject areas that fall under the umbrella nutrition and dietetics..
- Academic Search CompleteA good general database that has broad (but not deep) coverage of scholarly and popular literature in a wide variety of subject areas.
- AgricolaAGRICOLA indexes materials owned and cataloged by the National Agriculture Library, including research related to food and food science.
- medRxivAn open access preprint repository for the health sciences. Articles initially posted in medRxiv HAVE NOT gone through the peer review process, so be careful. Some older articles may have links to the final published version
- Social Science Citation IndexThe authoritative source for citation/bibliometric analysis.
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar uses Google's powerful online tools to search academic literature. Its index includes books, conference papers and gray literature in addition to articles in peer reviewed research journals.
What is peer review?
Peer review is the process by which articles are selected for publication in academic/scholarly journals. The articles are evaluated for accuracy, proper research methodology, and the correct interpretation and use of data by other experts in the field. No other publications undergo this level of vetting.
How do I know if something is peer reviewed?
If you are looking for peer reviewed articles, there are a number of ways to locate them. One way is to limit your database searches to only articles in peer reviewed publications. Many databases allow you to do this. For example, most EBSCO Host databases have a box labeled "Scholarly" or "Peer Reviewed" in the limiters section under the main search boxes.
Another way is to use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. This is an authoritative source for information about periodicals. Simply search the title of the journal using a title (keyword) search in the search box ont he top right of the page. If the journal is labeled as refereed: yes (or has a little icon of a referee's jersey in the results list) then it is a peer reviewed publication.
Search Tip: Use the Find It! Button
When you search a database for a "Full Text" item, you are only searching through that particular database for the document in full-text, and not our entire collection. An item may exist as a "Full Text" selection within a different database.
If you don't find an item as full-text in the database you're searching, use the "Find It" button to cross-search other databses for that same item. You may discover that we have electronic access to that material after all.
