Public Health

It may be appropriate to search for scholarly information on the web.  Usually this is when you are looking for:

• your professional organizations, and expert websites  -  Often these publish their own journal, or other publications, and some online access is usually free.
• a very recent topic (cutting edge)
• statistics or government info
• dissertations
• unpublished or obscure information

Here are a few we recommend.

Government sites:

• The Community Guide a collection of evidence-based findings of the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF)
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• MedlinePlus (NIH consumer health database)
• Center for Disease Control (CDC)
• Health Evidence - systematic reviews of public health interventions; registration (free) required. Canadian based.
• FastStats (CDC)
• Food & Nutrition Information Center (U.S. National Agricultural Library)
• healthypeople.gov
• WA Dept of Health

Non-profit organization & association sites:

• American Public Health Association

Educational sites:

• National Commission for Health Education Credentialing

Other Websites

• County Health Rankings & Roadmaps - provides data, evidence, guidance, and examples to build awareness of the multiple factors that influence health and support community leaders working to improve health and increase health equity. 

Using advanced Google Searching to find data

One of the best ways to find information on the open web is to use advanced Google search techniques.

Google allows you to search for information in specific domains.  For example, you can search for the keyword "data sets" and ask Google to ONLY bring you results from Seattle government websites.

"data sets" site:seattle.gov

Tips:  put phrases in quotations.  So, "data sets" not data sets

Search in specific domains by using site:______    e.g.  site: bastyr.edu

OR search for information in only .gov or .edu sites by using site:.gov

Websites can be excellent research sources, but require critical thinking skills to determine whether or not they offer credible information. Here are some criteria to consider:

Try using Google Scholar rather than Google when searching for research studies on the web.

Google Scholar is a specialized search engine that only searches for scholarly papers. Bonus! Access it through the MyBU>Library Databases page, for Bastyr library's full text offerings; sort by date to get the most current research.

Advantages:

• It screens out .com (commercial) sites.
• Results include articles, theses, books, from academic publishers, professional societies, universities, science websites, etc.
• Useful for cutting edge and/or little researched topics because it searches broadly.

Disadvantages:

• You can't find out exactly what's being searched; "spiders" crawl the web to retrieve results.
• Many retrieved items aren’t full text.
• Lacks sophisticated limiting and focusing features that research databases offer.