michigan informatics
Finding Databases of Journal Articles
When searching the journal literature for original research articles, you will need to use multiple resources. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of public health, no single source will provide you with all of the answers you need. Although PubMed is the primary biomedical database in the U.S., it does not fully cover topics such as environmental health, health communications, public policy, mental health, and the social sciences.
There are a number of freely available databases that cover topics of interest to public health. For example, ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) covers the education literature, Popline covers the population and reproductive health literature, and Agricola, from the US Department of Agriculture, covers the agriculture literature, including food and human nutrition.
If you are affiliated with a library, you should check its web site or contact a librarian to see what resources are available to you. This includes your state or local public library, which may provide you with free remote access to some high quality interdisciplinary databases and full text journals. Many state and local public libraries offer access to databases of journal articles. These will often be the most useful resources to the public health practice community. In addition to providing high-quality interdisciplinary databases, they also often provide access to the full text of the journal articles. Databases that you should look for include EbscoHost, InfoTrac, WilsonSelectPlus, and Expanded Academic ASAP. Although these databases include articles from the popular press, they also cover peer-reviewed journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The Michigan eLibrary provides access to all residents of the state of Michigan.
If you have difficulty gaining access to the articles that you find in a database, the MI-INFO tutorial on Searching the Literature provides a number of helpful suggestions.
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