Electronic Databases for Public Health

Last update: 22 September 2011,
by Maureen Bell

These databases can be used either in the Library or by remote access. The biggest (and easiest to use) is Scopus, which contains all Medline records from 1996. For some tips on searching click here

Newspapers

There may be times when you also need to access newspaper articles, and newspaper databases are listed here.

Searching the web

There will be times when you'd like to find government documents, or other information on the web. This is when Google is your best option, but make sure you use it effectively!! Try Four Nets for Better Searching for some easy to follow, simple advice.

Australian Databases

Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre
The Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre combines Australia and New Zealand specific magazines, newspapers & newswires, reference books, and company information. This database provides local perspectives on current events, business, sports, and many other subjects. Australia/NZ Reference Centre also contains international magazines, reference books, newspapers & newswires.

Australian Bureau of Statistics Website. Statistics Section
Everything on the ABS web site is now accessible free of charge. There's a useful "How do I?" option at the right hand side of the home page.

Informit
Informit offers a wide range of databases and full content publications that deliver Australasian scholarly material published in journals, monographs, conference proceedings and other research material. Informit Plus Text databases include links to thousands of articles from hundreds of leading Australasian journals. Subject areas covered include arts, education, health, law, business, science, and humanities and social sciences.

The Informit selection of Health databases is an excellent source of Australian material - much of which is not indexed elsewhere.

Libraries Australia The National Bibliographic Database
Libraries Australia is a web-based service for Australian libraries and their users. It provides access to the national database of material held in Australian libraries, known as the National Bibliographic Database. Libraries Australia enables you to search for an item and find out which library in Australia holds it. Use the Help option on the toolbar to find hints on effective searching.

To search for journals, use the Journals limit. For short titles such as Nature, use Advanced Search and change all of these to exact match or starts with. With the Advanced Search option you can restrict your search to books or journals held by libraries in South Australia.

SEIFA (Socio-economic indexes for areas)
SEIFA provides information and rankings for a wide range of geographic areas from small areas such as a Collection District (CD) to large areas such as Statistical Divisions. The four indexes are: Index of advantage/disadvantage, Index of disadvantage, Index of economic resources, Index of education and occupation. It is available only within the Library, and is not networked.

International Databases

Academic OneFile
Contains peer-reviewed, full-text articles in HTML and PDF format from more than 8000 journals with extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature, and other subjects; intended primarily for academic researchers.
Time span: 1980 -

Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier is a multi-disciplinary database, which provides full text for nearly 4,500 journals, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 titles. This database is updated on a daily basis.

BIOSIS Previews
BIOSIS Previews is the world’s most comprehensive reference database for life science research. It covers original research reports and reviews in traditional biological and biomedical areas. It also covers references to primary journal literature on vital biological research, medical research findings, and discoveries of new organisms.
Time span: 1980 -

Business Source Complete
Business Soure Complete provides full text for thousands of scholarly business journals, including full text for more than 1,000 peer-reviewed business publications. Coverage includes virtually all subject areas related to business.

CAB Abstracts
Index with abstracts to journal articles as well as books, conferences, reports, theses etc. Subjects covered include animal sciences, veterinary sciences, dairy science and technology, plant breeding and genetics, crop sciences, crop protection, environmental and natural resources, forestry, post-harvest science and technology, agricultural biotechnology, biodegradation, agricultural engineering, agricultural economics, rural development and sociology, leisure, recreation and tourism, human nutrition, tropical diseases and medical parasitology.
Time span: 1910 -

The Campbell Collaboration
The Campbell Collaboration collaborates closely with its sibling organization, the Cochrane Collaboration, which prepares and maintains systematic reviews of the effects of interventions in health care. The Campbell Library of Systematic Reviews provides free online access to systematic reviews in the areas of education, criminal justice and social welfare.

CDC WONDER
CDC WONDER (Wide-ranging OnLine Data for Epidemiologic Research) is an easy-to-use, menu-driven system that makes the information resources of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) available to public health professionals and the public at large. It provides access to a wide array of public health information.

CINAHL with full text
Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), is equivalent to the printed Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. It indexes English language nursing journals, as well as publications of the American Nurses' Association and the National League for Nursing. The primary journals from the following allied health disciplines are also included. Allied Health Disciplines, Cardiopulmonary Technology, Dental Hygiene, Emergency Services, Medical/Laboratory Technology, Medical Assistant, Medical Records, Nutrition and Dietetics ,Occupational Therapy, Optometry, Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, Physicians' Assistant, Podiatry, Radiologic Technology, Respiratory Technology, Social Service in Health Care, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Surgical Technology.
Publications are selectively indexed for the following fields:
Behavioral Science, Biomedicine, Consumer Health, Health Sciences Librarianship, Health Services Administration, Law & Legal Issues in Health Care.
Time span: 1983 -.

Basic help for searching CINAHL is here

CRD databases
These include DARE (which is also available as part of the Cochrane Library), NHS EED (abstracts of health economics papers including quality assessed economic evaluations), and HTA (health technology assessments from around the world). The CRD databases are available as part of the Cochrane Library interface. They can also be searched via the National Library for Health, via the TRIP Database and via SUMSearch.

CISID (centralized information system for infectious diseases)
Contains data gathered through surveillance of communicable diseases – such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections, and malaria – and data on immunization coverage in countries and recent outbreaks in Europe. Offers information on recent outbreaks in Europe and some other textual information. Allows detailed review and assessment of the situation on the main infectious diseases in the WHO European Region. Offers some data at the subnational level.

Cochrane Library
Cochrane Library provides rapid access to high quality information about the effects of health care. You'll find some background notes on my Cochrane Library and Evidence Based Medicine page.

CSA Sociological Abstracts
The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Records added after 1974 contain in-depth and nonevaluative abstracts of journal articles.
Time span: 1952 -

Current Contents
see
ISI Current Contents Connect

Embase
Indexes an additional 2,000 + biomedical titles not currently covered by Medline. Although it contains Medline data, it is not an alternative to PubMed, which includes recent material not yet indexed for Medline, and not available through Embase.

Environmental Health and Toxicology SIS Specialized Information Services
From the National Library of Medicine databases and other resources related to toxicology and environmental health. Of particular interest is TOXNET, for which there is a downloadable manual.

TOXNET is a collection of databases including:-

HSDB (Hazardous Substances Data Bank)
IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System)
GENE-TOX (Genetic Toxicology (Mutagenicity)
CCRIS (Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System)
TOXLINE (Toxicology Bibliographic Information)
DART/ETIC (Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology)
TRI (Toxics Release Inventory)
ChemIDplus (Chemical Synonyms, Structures and more)

Epi Info
Epi Info is a public domain software package designed for the global community of public health practitioners and researchers and available from the CDC web site. It allows for easy form and database construction, data entry, and analysis with epidemiologic statistics, maps, and graphs.

ERIC
The ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to educational-related literature. The ERIC database corresponds to two printed journals: Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). In addition, ERIC provides coverage of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.

European health for all database (HFA-DB)
Contains data on a range of health indicators, including basic demographic and socioeconomic indicators; some lifestyle- and environment-related indicators; mortality, morbidity and disability; hospital discharges; and health care resources, utilization and expenditure. Allows analysis of trends and international comparisons for a wide range of health statistics to support the formulation and monitoring of health policy at national and international levels.

Health Business FullTEXT Elite
This database provides full text coverage for nearly 450 well-known administrative journals. Health Business FullTEXT Elite provides comprehensive journal content detailing all aspects of health care administration and other non-clinical aspects of health care institution management.
Time span: 1965 -

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Database
Health care technology is defined as prevention and rehabilitation, vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and devices, medical and surgical procedures, and the systems within which health is protected and maintained. Technology assessment studies the medical, social, ethical and economic implications of development, diffusion, and the use of health technology and informs policy decisions. Its aim is to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of healthcare.

Health Promotion Databases
From the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre) - part of the Social Science Research Unit (SSRU), Institute of Education, University of London.

This page contains links to:-
BiblioMap - a database of health promotion research
DoPHER (Database of Promoting Health Effectivesness Reviews) - a specialised register concentrating on reviews
TRoPHI (Trials Register of Promoting Health Interventions) - a web-based database of randomised controlled trials and controlled trials (non-randomised) of Public Health and Health Promotion interventions.

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
This database provides over 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. It also features abstracts and indexing for 800 journals.

HERDIN NeON (Health Research and Development Information Network)
HERDIN NeON is a database of published Philippine literature on health and related topics.

International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements Database (IBIDS)
IBIDS is a database of published, international, scientific literature on dietary supplements that is available to the public free of charge. The purpose of this database is to assist both scientists and the general public in locating credible, scientific literature on dietary supplements. The computer interface was designed to be user-friendly so individuals with all levels of expertise may use it easily. For those unfamiliar with dietary supplement terminology, a drop down list of standard keywords is available.

ISI Current Contents Connect
Current Contents Connect is a weekly table-of-contents database which presents the contents pages of current issues of the world's scholarly and technical journals, books, and proceedings literature. It is the best database for very recent articles, and has a useful email alert function.
Time span: 1998 -
Help is available from Current Contents Connect Quick Reference Card , and Current Contents Connect Tutorial

ISI Web of Knowledge
ISI Web of Knowledge allows you to cross-search multiple resources simultaneously. Its resources include CAB Abstracts, Biosis Previews, Current Contents Connect, Inspec, Zoological Record, and Web of Science, as well as a version of Medline.

LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature)
From the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information, contains citations from about 670 English, Spanish and Portuguese journals, most of which are not indexed in MEDLINE and EMBASE.

MDConsult
MD Consult is designed to answer clinical questions, and to help physicians stay abreast of recent medical developments. It includes the ability to search a range of books, journals, drug information, practice guidelines, and patient information handouts.

Medline
see
PubMed

NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED)
The NHS EED is database of economic evaluations of health care interventions. If you search the Cochrane Library, records from NHS EED will be included in the search results automatically. However NHS EED on the WWW is updated monthly so searchers should be aware that the Internet version of NHS EED will always have more information than the version on the Cochrane Library which is published quarterly.

Periodicals Archive Online
Periodicals Archive Online is an online periodical archive that makes the backfiles of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences available electronically, providing access to the full text of a growing number of digitized periodicals that have been indexed in its sister database, Periodicals Index Online. PAO includes full text from periodicals in English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, and other Western languages, including some published as far back as 1802.

POPLINE
POPLINE (POPulation information onLINE) is the world's largest bibliographic database on population, family planning, and related health issues, providing citations with abstracts for over 285,000 records representing published and unpublished literature in the field.

Population Index
From the Office of Population Research, Princeton University, a searchable and browsable database containing 46,035 abstracts of demographic literature published in Population Index in the period 1986-2000

PsycARTICLES
PsycARTICLES™ is a database of full-text articles from journals published by the American Psychological Association, the APA Educational Publishing Foundation, the Canadian Psychological Association, and Hogrefe Publishing Group. Most APA journals now go back to Volume 1, Issue 1; the earliest journal is Psychological Review, which was started in 1894.

PsycINFO
PsycINFO is an abstract database of psychological literature from the 1800s to the present. The fact that we are accessing it through EBSCOhost means that full text for some journals is available online. PsycINFO covers not only journals (almost all of which are peer reviewed), but also books, and book chapters.

Basic help for searching PsycINFO is here

PubMed (University of Adelaide Customised Version)
Records in the version of PubMed customised for the University of Adelaide have a 'University of Adelaide Online' button - which will allow access to the many thousands of online journal articles available to Adelaide users. You will need to use the link above or the Library's catalogue to access this version.

Notes and tutorials on how to use PubMed can be found here
Detailed notes on searching for evidence based material on PubMed are here.
Instructions for importing references from PubMed into EndNote are here
Click here for a video demonstration

Science Citation Index
see
Web of Science

Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database. It has the broadest coverage available of scientific, technical, medical and social sciences literature, including 15,000 peer-reviewed journals from more than 4,000 international publishers.

Social Sciences Citation Index
see
Web of Science

Social Services Abstracts
Social Services Abstracts provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. The database abstracts and indexes over 1,406 serials publications and includes abstracts of journal articles and dissertations, and citations to book reviews.
Time span: 1980 -

Sociological Abstracts
see
CSA Sociological Abstracts

TOXNET
see
Environmental Health and Toxicology SIS Specialized Information Services

Web of Knowledge
see
ISI Web of Knowledge

Web of Science
Web of Science is useful for finding articles which have cited a given article, and which should therefore be on a similar topic.
It includes:-
Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED)
Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)
Time span: 1980-
Help for searching Web of Science is at Web of Science Tutorial, and Web of Science Quick Reference Card

WHOLIS
WHOLIS indexes all WHO publications from 1948 onwards and articles from WHO-produced journals and technical documents from 1985 to the present. An on-site card catalogue provides access to the pre-1986 technical documents. Covers public and environmental health issues internationally.

WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System)
WISQARS is an interactive database system that provides customized reports of injury-related data. It is product of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in the United States.