Research Guides: Public Health: Public Health

Welcome

This guide will introduce you to Gleeson Library resources that are essential for graduate public health students. It includes links to select databases, as well as tutorials and guides.

Articles/Databases

PubMed
PubMed provides access to more than 23 million bibliographic citations primarily drawn from MEDLINE, as well as publisher-supplied citations, in-process and "ahead-of-print" citations.

Tutorials

PubMed Instructional Videos
PubMed Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine

PubMed Tutorials
by Claire Sharifi Last Updated Mar 19, 2020 148 views this year

Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.

Comprehensive: Scopus has twice as many titles and over 30% more publishers listed than any other abstract and index (A&I) database, with interdisciplinary content that covers the research spectrum. Timely updates from thousands of peer-reviewed journals, preliminary findings from millions of conference papers, and the thorough analysis in an expanding collection of books ensure you have the most up-to-date and highest quality interdisciplinary content available.

On-Campus Link

Scopus Tutorials
by Claire Sharifi Last Updated Mar 19, 2020 63 views this year

CINAHL Complete
CINAHL Complete is the world's most comprehensive nursing & allied health research database, providing full text for more than 1,300 journals indexed in CINAHL. This authoritative file contains full text for many of the most used journals in the CINAHL index, with no embargo.

The database also provides full text for more than 275 books/monographs. With full-text coverage dating back to 1937, CINAHL Complete is the definitive research tool for all areas of nursing and allied health literature.

CINAHL Complete also provides indexing for more than 5,300 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health. The database contains more than 3.7 million records dating back to 1937. Offering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses' Association, CINAHL covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines. In addition, this database offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals and book chapters. Searchable cited references for more than 1,550 journals are also included.

Tutorials:
Keyword Searching
Advanced Searching

On-Campus Link

CINAHL Tutorials
by Claire Sharifi Last Updated Mar 19, 2020 249 views this year

APA PsycInfo
APA PsycInfo is the American Psychological Association's renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations. It is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health, and contains over 3 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s, with one of the highest DOI matching rates in the publishing industry. Ninety-nine percent of its content is peer-reviewed. Formerly called PsycINFO.

Included is information on the psychological aspects of related fields such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, technology, linguistics, anthropology, business, law and others. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to the present, includes international material selected from around 2,500 periodicals in dozens of languages. APA PsycInfo is indexed with controlled vocabulary from APA's Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms.

On Campus Link
SocINDEX with Full Text
SocINDEX with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database. The database features more than 2.1 million records with subject headings from a 20,000+ term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers.

SocINDEX with Full Textcontains full text for more than 860 journals dating back to 1908. This database also includes full text for more than 830 books and monographs, and full text for over 16,800 conference papers.

On-Campus Link
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews of primary research in human health care and health policy, and are internationally recognized as the highest standard in evidence-based health care resources.

Cochrane Reviews investigate the effects of interventions for prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. They also assess the accuracy of a diagnostic test for a given condition in a specific patient group and setting. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews is a full text resource.

On-Campus Link
Fusion
Fusion allows you to search, in one place, the majority of the library’s books, articles, videos, etc. It includes all the materials in our library catalog Ignacio, as well as the content of the majority of our many databases.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
Does Fusion include everything the library has?
No, but it includes so much of what the library has that it will almost always be a good place to start a search.

When would Fusion not make sense as the first place to search?
Some examples:

If you’re interested in finding only books, or a specific book title, then our library catalog Ignacio might be a more appropriate place to begin.
If you’re looking specifically for statistical data, or encyclopedia/dictionary entries, or images, it would be better to use databases devoted to those specific types of information.
If you're looking for a specific Journal title, you should use our Journal Finder.
I’m very proficient using the subject-specific databases in my field. Is there any reason I should use Fusion?
Because Fusion will have such broad coverage, it may locate relevant materials published in other fields that you wouldn’t otherwise find in a subject-specific database.

So then why would I want to choose a subject-specific database anymore—can I just use Fusion instead?
Fusion is not replacing any of our subject-specific databases. These databases offer valuable advanced searching capabilities tailored to their subject areas.

On-Campus Link

Cochrane Library Resources
by Claire Sharifi Last Updated Jan 31, 2019 24 views this year

Finding Books related to Public Health

These videos demonstrate how to use the Library's Ignacio catalog to discover and access books in print and electronic format. The first video executes a simple keyword search for a book title and the second video utilizes the catalog's advanced search screen and filters.

Ignacio: Library Catalog
The library catalog lets you search across the holdings of Gleeson Library and Zief Law Library, including books, videos, and other materials. Alumni and visitor access.

Web Resources

Google Search Tip

The open web (the web that is searchable using Google) is an excellent resource for health data. Limiting to .gov sites using the "site:" operator can be particularly helpful. For example, the following Google search heart disease epidemiology site:gov will bring back results about the epidemiology of heart disease from the CDC; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; MedlinePlus; as well as state and local public health departments.

Watch the brief video below for more Google search tips

Agency for Health Care Research & Quality (AHRQ)
AHRQ is the health services research section of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Their website is fully searchable and offers information about consumer health, data and surveys, research findings, and specific populations, as well as other public health topics.
Think Tank Search
A custom Google search of over 670 think tanks.
American Public Health Association (APHA)
The oldest Public Health association in America. Their website includes a searchable database that links to articles dealing with American Public Health issues
Center for Disease Control (CDC)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the leading national public health institute of the United States.
Global Health Gateway
Kaiser Family Foundation's "online clearinghouse for the latest data and information on the U.S. role in global health."
ToxNet
A cluster of databases covering toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health, and related areas. It is managed by the Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program in the Division of Specialized Information Services of the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

Find more information about the TOXNET suite of databases in the Environmental Health guide

World Health Organization (WHO)
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health.

Statistical Data

PolicyMap
Thousands of U.S. data indicators for demographic and socioeconomic analysis. PolicyMap data can be presented as maps, tables, charts and pre-built reports that can be incorporated into papers, presentations, blogs and websites. In addition, students can upload unlimited amounts of their own address-based data, and can share these maps with others.

An online (no software installation needed) U.S. national data and mapping tool and analytics platform with multidisciplinary applications for college students and faculty. It is used in undergraduate and graduate curriculum and research related to social sciences, urban studies, real estate and housing analysis, community and economic development, public administration, public health, policy and political science, education, business, economics, statistics, and geography, among others. Users can leverage thousands of U.S. data indicators in PolicyMap to perform demographic and socioeconomic analysis, from a neighborhood census block group in many cases, up to a national level, as well as create custom regions, for their research and studies.

PolicyMap’s data indicators accessible via easy to use menus organized in categories including demographics, income and spending, housing, lending, quality of life, economy, education, health, federal guidelines, and analytics. Data can be viewed on a census block or census tract level in many cases, city, county, zip, state, US, as well as by congressional district, school district, state house and state senate districts.

San Francisco Health Improvement Partnership
Get a snap shot of the health status and quality of life in San Francisco. Some variables are available at the neighborhood level. A handy overview of SF demographics is available here.
County Health Rankings
The annual County Health Rankings measure vital health factors, including high school graduation rates, obesity, smoking, unemployment, access to healthy foods, the quality of air and water, income inequality, and teen births in nearly every county in America.
California Department of Public Health Statistics
This website provides access to California public health data and information, such as queries, resources, statistics, surveys, informatics, GIS, and health information.
California Health Interview Survey
The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) is the nation's largest state health survey and a critical source of data on Californians as well as on the state's various racial and ethnic groups. Policymakers, researchers, health experts, members of the media and others depend on CHIS for credible and comprehensive data on the health of Californians.
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is the nation's premier system of health-related telephone surveys that collect state data about U.S. residents regarding their health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, and use of preventive services.
National Center for Health Statistics
The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) is the nation's largest state health survey and a critical source of data on Californians as well as on the state's various racial and ethnic groups. Policymakers, researchers, health experts, members of the media and others depend on CHIS for credible and comprehensive data on the health of Californians.
Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS)
CDC’s WISQARS™ (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) is an interactive, online database that provides fatal and nonfatal injury, violent death, and cost of injury data from a variety of trusted sources.

Statistics and Data
by Carol Spector Last Updated Jul 2, 2020 2458 views this year

Laws & Legislation

ProQuest Congressional
ProQuest Congressional is especially useful for performing legislative histories and locating Congressional documents. It is also very useful for tracking legislation and major public policy issues, locating recent Congressional documents and related material in full text, and learning more about Congress and the legislative process.

ProQuest Congressional provides comprehensive indexing and abstracting of Congressional publications, CIS legislative histories, and bill tracking. It includes the full text of Congressional reports, documents, prints, bills, the Congressional Record, selected testimony in hearings before Congress, Public laws, Statutes at Large, the United States Code Service, the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations, and the National Journal. It also provides information about members of Congress, Congressional committees, and recent legislative activities and public policy issues in the news.
ProQuest Legislative Insight
Congress produces a variety of publications as a bill moves through the legislative process on its way to becoming a law. A compilation of these full text primary source publications produces a legislative history that is valuable to a wide variety of researchers. Legislative Insight offers a research citation page that not only links to the full text of the associated primary source publications, but allows the user to do a Search Within from that very page that searches the full text of all the associated publications with one-click.

Full-text publication types associated with a legislative history include the Public Law, all versions of enacted and related bills, Congressional Record excerpts, and committee hearings, reports, and documents. All of these publication types can be used in court to determine the intent of Congress in enacting legislation in cases where the statutory language is ambiguous. Other full-text publication types are included in our legislative histories to provide users with background material are committee prints, CRS reports, and miscellaneous congressional publications. Presidential signing statements are also included.

California Legislative Information
This site has been updated to include legislative publications starting with the 2017 session and forward.
A "Daily Updates" report feature has been added. The report displays, by house, measures for which there was activity the previous day such as new analyses, hearings, placement on the Daily File, amendments, History actions, or votes.
Measures prior to 1999 can be still be found at http://leginfo.ca.gov which will remain as an archive for legislative information.
Public Policy Institute of California - Health
Their mission is to inform and improve public policy in California through independent, objective, nonpartisan research.

Videos

Films On Demand
Films On Demand delivers more than 90,000 educational online videos ideal for students and faculty.

Thousands of exclusive educational videos from top producers, segmented into easy-to-use clips
Unlimited, simultaneous, 24/7 access, in class or off site

iPad, Android, PC, and Mac friendly

New content added monthly, with more than 1,000 new titles added a year

Closed-captioning and interactive transcripts for thousands of titles

Authenticated HTML embed code that allows direct access to videos from within Canvas, or other LMS

Dynamic citations in Chicago, MLA, and APA styles

Note: There is a known issue creating custom segments, using filters, and paging through results after executing a search. If you run into these issues, please access Films on Demand on-campus:

On-Campus Link
Counseling & Therapy in Video
This series contains more than 2,500 hours of footage from actual therapy sessions, training videos, and reenactments conducted by renowned counseling professionals.

Perhaps the greatest source of anxiety for students in the mental health field is the prospect of working with clients in face-to-face counseling encounters. The five-volume Counseling and Therapy in Video Series provides an invaluable firsthand look at the realities of working with clients and the challenges associated with putting theoretical concepts into practice.

On-Campus Link

MPH Capstone Projects

Find completed MPH Capstone Projects, and learn about the USF institutional repository submission process.

View past USF MPH Capstone projects

Scholarship Repository Homepage
The USF Scholarship Repository is an institutional repository service provided by the Gleeson Library | Geschke Center in collaboration with Dorraine Zief Law Library to digitally collect, preserve and provide electronic access to scholarly works and research output by the University of San Francisco community.
MPH Capstone Projects
View completed USF MPH Capstone projects

Capstone Project Submission Guide
Instructions on how to submit your USF MPH Capstone Project

More information on USF's digital publishing services

Citing Sources & APA 7th Edition Resources

RefWorks
RefWorks allows users to create personal databases to manage, store, and share the information citations/references. Users can automatically insert references from their database into their papers and generate formatted bibliographies and manuscripts in seconds. Create an account using your USF email address.

Create an account using your USF email address.

If you do not want to use your USF email address:

on campus: create an account with any email address.
off campus: use the link above and this invitation code: 5951-1639
Please note, even though you will be prompted for a "university email address," you may enter any email address.

(You can still use the Old RefWorks) Group Code: RWUSanFrancisco

New RefWorks Guide
Legacy RefWorks Guide

Getting Started with RefWorks

A series of 3 short videos on RefWorks basics: signing up for an account, adding and organizing content to RefWorks, and creating in-text citations and bibliographies.

APA 7th Edition In-Text Citations & References

Two videos that address formatting in-text citations and references.

Additional APA 7th Edition Resources

Purdue OWL APA 7th Edition Guide
Our favorite style guide web site is the OWL from Purdue University.
Purdue OWL Sample Student Paper
APA 7th edition sample student paper. A good reference for formatting, in-text citations, and references.

Public Health

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