LibGuides: Global Public Health: Find Articles

Finding, Identifying, and Evaluating Article Literature

Articles can be found in a range of publications, including magazines, newspapers, journals, and websites. To learn more about evaluating articles in order to see if they are appropriate for your research project, see the drop-down page Scholarly? Authoritative? Peer Reviewed? Which do I have?

Most databases provide citations to articles without providing the full-text but some do provide the full-text articles (allowing you to access the full-text without connecting to another electronic resources). Review the box below "Getting Full Text Articles" and/or the drop-down page by the same title.

Getting Full Text Articles

The full text of an article within a database is provided in multiple formats. Look for:

An HTML link
PDF link
Link to Get it at UC

The UC links will provide you options for how to access the full text of the article. If there are no online links available, this means you need to request the item through Interlibrary Loan if a print version is not available at UC San Diego. The Library will deliver the full text of an article to you free of charge. When requesting you will need to sign in with your Active Directory credentials.

Databases helpful for finding articles on global health topics

Health Focused Databases

CINAHL
1937 - present. Covers indexing of over 5000 journals in nursing and the allied health sciences, with full text for over 700 of those journals. Coverage includes nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative & complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
Embase
Embase database covers around 8,600 journals from 100 countries, Subjects covered include all disciplines of medicine and biomedical science with particular strengths in the fields of drug research, pharmacology and toxicology. It also includes coverage of Allied Health subjects as well as Public Health topics. A key resource for systematic reviews, particularly ones involving drug therapy.
LILACS (Latin American & Caribbean Health Sciences Literature)
LILACS covers literature related to the health sciences and has been published in countries of Latin America and the Caribbean since 1982, and is published by WHO Regional Offices. It contains articles from about 670 of the most well-known journals in the medicine field, plus other documents such as: theses, books, conference proceedings, scientific reports and governmental publications.
PsycINFO
1597-present. From the American Psychological Association. Provides access to scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations. Includes approximately 2,500 journals. Updated weekly and includes an index of PsycArticles.
PubMed
Covers over 5,700 journals in the biomedical and health sciences and years covered late 1940's - present, with additional older medical literature selectively added. Search using keywords or the controlled vocabulary called MeSH. PubMed will automatically match your keyword terms to MeSH terms. For additional tips, see the Library's PubMed page.

For more medical and health sciences resources, you can use the Medicine libguide.

Additional Subject-specific Databases That May be Helpful for Public Health Research

Anthropological Index Online
Index to anthropology articles held by the Anthropology Library and Research Centre at the British Museum and to films held at the Royal Anthropological Institute.

AnthroSource
Current issues of American Anthropological Association's journals and bulletins as well as archived issues of all the AAA's journals, newsletters and bulletins. Journal issues generally appear online prior to distribution in print.
Anthropology Plus
Indexing database for anthropology, archaeology & related topics. Indexes articles in 2500+ scholarly journals, 1870 to present. Combines databases: Anthropological Literature (Harvard/Tozzer) and Anthropological Index (Royal Anthropological Institute)
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center)
1966-present. Sponsored by the U.S. Dept of Education; provides access to educational-related literature. Coverage includes journal articles and non-journal sources in education which are not available online. If not online, write down the ED# located in the 'Accession Number' field of the record, and check the ERIC documents microfiche cabinets located in the Geisel Library Reference Area.
Family & Society Studies Worldwide
Publications indexed are drawn from a wide range of social science disciplines including anthropology, sociology, psychology, demography, health sciences, education, economics, law, history, and social work. Covers 1970-present.
PAIS International (Public Affairs Information Service)
1972-present. Lists print and electronic articles, books, and government publications on issues of public policy, including politics, government, economy, marine policy, law.

Science.gov
Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2,200 scientific websites to provide users with access to more than 200 million pages of authoritative federal science information including research and development results.

Sociological Abstracts
1963-present. Abstracts journal articles, monographs, dissertations, conference proceedings, other research covering sociology, social work, and related social sciences. Also includes selected web resources.

Cross-disciplinary Databases that Allow Searching for Literature on Many Disciplines at Once

Academic Search Complete
Multidisciplinary database with 17,800+ journals and magazines, of which 16,000+ are peer-reviewed and 8,750+ are full-text. Also included are books, conference papers and proceedings, government documents, newspapers, video content, and more. Coverage begins in 1887, with material in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Web of Science
Indexes over 18,000 journals in all subjects (coverage back to 1900 for science and social science journals), as well as 80,000 books and more than 180K conference proceedings. Includes the popular "cited reference search" to identify papers which have cited a previously published work or author. Can also sort by "times cited" and find related articles based on commonly cited works.