Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library: Community Health: Article Searching

Recommended Databases

For additional resources, please visit the Public Health and MPH Libguide.

PubMed This link opens in a new window
Searches MEDLINE, the leading database of journal articles in the health sciences, including medicine, nursing, the allied health sciences, public health, and the basic sciences. Coverage is 1946 - present.
Ovid Medline This link opens in a new window
Searches MEDLINE, the leading database of journal articles in the health sciences, including medicine, nursing, the allied health sciences, public health, and the basic sciences. Ovid MEDLINE is optimized for advanced searching. Coverage is 1946 - present. Note: You have the option to create a personal account by navigating to "My workspace" and then, following the prompt to set up an account. This allows you to save results and more.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
This abstract and citation database covers thousands of scholarly journals, books, and conference proceedings. Covering a broad range of disciplines, Scopus enables one to track, analyze, and visualize research. Output data at the institutional and author levels are available. Authors will find h-index, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), and citation counts helpful in demonstrating the impact of their work.

Search for articles on your topic in PubMed:

1. Use search terms from these categories (keywords to be used in the database):

Geographic area (city, county, state)
Age / gender (adolescents, adults, men, women, etc)
Ethnicity (Vietnamese-Americans, Latinos, Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, etc)
Other groups (transgendered, pregnant, disabled, HIV positive, gang members, etc)
Ideas that note disparity situations (health disparities, disproportionate burden, underserved, etc)
Health status, problems, needs (cervical cancer, obesity, smoking, asthma, lead, etc)
Nature of study (comparison, program planning, report, etc.)

2.Select 2-3 keyword terms to search at a time.

3. Do several searches with different pairs of keyword terms.

Here's a sample search in PubMed using some of these categories.