Women's Health

Last update: October 2010,
by Maureen Bell

I've divided this page into two sections. The first provides you with some tips on searching for material on Medline, and the second provides links to other Australian and overseas web resources, including some full text report and journal literature.

Searching Medline

Remember that Medline has a Thesaurus of terms - MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), a controlled vocabulary used for indexing articles in Medline. MeSH terminology provides a consistent way to retrieve information where authors may use different terminology for the same concepts.

Below are some examples of the language Medline uses to describe the concepts in this field.

MeSH - Female
This thesaurus term is also called a check tag. Further down the page I have included an example of how it may be used in a search. Check tags used by Medline are listed below. These check tags must be enetered by an indexer for every journal article citation to which they apply.

Animal
Case Report
Comparative Study
English Abstract
Female
Human
In Vitro
Male
Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH - Maternal Health Services

MeSH - Women
Human adult females as cultural, psychological, sociological, political, and economic entities. More specific subcategories are:

Battered Women
Dentists, Women
Physicians, Women
Women, Working

MeSH - Women's Health

MeSH - Women's Health Services

MeSH - Women's Rights

Many topics in MeSH have hierarchies of more specific subcategories or related terms. The indentations in the lists reflect the structure of the hierarchy, and the + signs at the end of terms indicate that there is a further hierarchy of terms not displayed here. Any of these terms can be searched individually, or you can "explode" terms to search sections of the list.

Try using the search structure below to search for articles on cardiovascular disease in women.

COMBINE

Cardiovascular Disease (MeSH term)

AND

Female (MeSH term)

NOT

Male (MeSH term)

PubMed Search Formulation

This search strategy uses the headings cardiovascular disease, female, and male. The section in the square brackets includes majr - which focuses the search on articles where the subject is a major issue in the article. PubMed's default is to "explode" all terms, and as I don't want articles on specific types of cardiovascular disease, but only on cardiovascular disease generally I've added noexp to stop the explosion. The next part of the strategy specifies that the search should apply to females and not males, as only articles which refer to women are wanted NOT articles which refer to both men and women. The search is then limited to articles which are in English or which have English abstracts.

Click here to see how it works. PubMed Search.

This search would have dramatically different results if the thesaurus term "women" was substituted for "female".

cardiovascular disease[majr:noexp] AND women[mh] NOT male[mh] AND english[lang]

Click here to see how it works. PubMed Search.

Australian Sources

Health Report - Women's Health
Transcripts from Radio National's Health Report, with Norman Swan.

National Health and Medical Research Council. Publications. Women's Health
The full text of many publications is available online in .pdf format.

Perinatal Health List (AIHW)
Full text is available for most publications.

Publications by topic - Women's health
From the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

South Australian Women's Health Policy

Women's Health (HealthInsite)
HealthInsite is an initiative funded by the Australian Department of Health and Ageing, to provide easy access to quality health information.

Women's Health Australia
Women's Health Australia is a national research resource providing information on women's health issues. It provides an evidence base to the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing for the development and evaluation of policy and practice in many areas of service delivery that affect women.

Your Health - Women's Health
From the ABC Health and Wellbeing site.

Overseas Sources

CDC Health Topic: Women's Health
A collection of resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.

CMACE - Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries
The Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE) is an independent charity. Its mission is to improve the health of mothers, babies and children by carrying out confidential enquiries and other related work on a UK wide basis and widely disseminating the results.

Commonwealth Fund Publications: Women

Ending Violence Against Women, Population Reports, Series L, Number 11
Heise, L., Ellsberg, M. and Gottemoeller, M. Ending Violence Against Women. Population Reports, Series L, No. 11. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Population Information Program, December 1999.

Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women
By Patricia Tjaden, and Nancy Thoennes, this research report contains findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Washington, D.C., Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, November 2000.

girlshealth.gov
The U.S.Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's health includes a page for girls and adolescents.

Health Care Information Resources -- Women's Health Problems Links
A useful collection of links from the Health Sciences Library at McMaster University.

MedlinePlus: Women's Health
MEDLINEplus is the National Library of Medicine's consumer health information portal. Lists of links are evaluated/reviewed/quality-filtered.

National Academies Press: Women's Health
Free online books and reports.

Quality of Care for Women
Quality of Care for Women: A Review of Selected Clinical Conditions and Quality Indicators. Elizabeth A. McGlynn, Eve A. Kerr, Cheryl L. Damberg, and Stephen M. Asch Editors. A RAND research publication. MR-1284-HCFA, 2000.

Reproductive Health Gateway
RH Gateway is a project of the Health Information Publications Network (HIPnet). It is
managed by the Johns Hopkins University/Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP).

ReproLine(r): Reproductive Health Online -- family planning, training, contraception, mastery learning website
ReproLine was developed by JHPIEGO, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University. JHPIEGO, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health of women and families throughout the world, works to increase the number of qualified health professionals trained in modern reproductive healthcare, especially family planning.

The Unmet Need for Contraception in Developing Countries
This is a RAND policy brief.

Women of Color Health Data Book
This book is a publication of the Office of Research on Women’s Health which addresses specifically, the role of culture, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic background, geographic location, and other social and economic factors as important contributors to the health status of coloured women in the United States.

Women's Health Resources and Related Internet Links - Canadian Women's Health Network
A useful set of annotated links from the Canadian Women's Health Network.

Women's Health Specialist Library
One of a collection of specialist libraries for the National electronic Library for Health (NeLH) in the U.K.

Women's Health Surveillance: A Plan of Action for Health Canada; A Report from the Advisory Committee on Women's Health Surveillance
Produced by Health Canada, 1999.

Women's Human Rights Resources
I've included this link as the site has a database of resources including documents relating to women's health issues.

womenshealth.gov
National Women's Health Information Center (NWHIC), a service of the Office on Women's Health (OWH) in the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).