Public Health

Articles, books, statistics, how to cite references, and more information about the multidisciplinary field of public health.

Find Journal Articles, News, Conference Papers, and More

Save your time! Use these search techniques:

  • Put quotation marks around PHRASES (two or more words), so that the words are searched together
    --- Example: "chicken pox"
     
  • Put an asterisk at the end of words, so that you get all of the word endings
    --- Example: high* = high, highs, higher, highest
     
  • Think of alternate spellings or synonyms
    --- Example: healthcare or "healthcare"; malfunction or failure
     
  • Start by putting your search words in the Title. If you get nothing, you can take them out of the Title and move them to "Anywhere."

After you look in general sources, use *article* databases to find more specific information about your topic.


To start:

  • Go to   Library home page --> Databases --> Academic Search Ultimate
  • This is a large collection of articles on every subject, and a good place to start


Then PubMed:
Read this information about using PubMed --> For example: use the correct address (don't Google it), and change "Best Match" to "Most Recent"

Information about Everything Else

Use journal articles to get:

  • a narrow or specific part of your topic
  • up-to-date information

1. Library home page --> Databases

2.  Click "Browse list of databases"


 

3. Choose a subject to see the databases with information about it.
 

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4. In each list, start with the databases under CORE -- they are the best and most relevant 

  • For a description about what's in the database, click "More Info" next to the database name
In addition to journal articles, what other specialized information should you check?
 
  1. Statistics -- This guide has statistics for the U.S. and the world
  2. News sources -- See the tab above called "What's the News?"
  3. Government information -- U.S. government agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have web sites that are full of information
    --- Tip:  To find information from ONLY the U.S. government, put a lot of words into Google and add  site:.gov to your search


Evaluate the information

If you are NOT searching a scholarly database like the ones in the library, make sure that you carefully evaluate the information you have found.

In addition to the news itself, news items can also provide the names of information sources about your topics.
For business news: the best database is ABI/INFORM, and the other two under CORE.
  • Library home page --> Databases by Topic --> Business --> CORE

What are people saying?
  • Polling the Nations -- Questions and responses from more than 12,000 national, state, local, and special surveys, conducted by 700 polling organizations in the United States and 70 other countries, from 1986 through the present.
    (Only 4 people at a time can use this database.)
     
  • Roper iPoll -- "Most of the data are from the United States, but over 50 nations are represented. You can search for datasets by keyword, country, surveying agency, timeframe, and type of sample.
    --- Users "that have an email address with the extension @jhu.edu can self-register by clicking on the Account icon and selecting "Log In", although registration is no longer necessary to search or download when connected to the campus network. Pre-existing login credentials will not provide access to this new Roper iPoll, so you will have to create a new account.
For this course, you will be using AMA (American Medical Association) style.
  • The most recent AMA edition is the 11th, which we have online
  • Library home page --> Research Guides -- Citing Sources --> More Styles --> AMA

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Annotating

An "annotation" is a note or comment.
An "annotated bibliography" is a "list of citations to books, articles, and [other items]. Each citation is followed by a brief...descriptive and evaluative paragraph, [whose purpose is] to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited."*

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To help you organize your sources, try using the second matrix shown on the Literature Reviews page of this guide, under the "Organizing Your Information" tab.

  • You can make it from Word or Excel or by hand or any way you want
  • It's just a way to help you lay out the main information about each of your sources, to help you write the "Overall Conclusions" part of your annotated bibliography