Research Guides: Community & Global Health: Articles & Primary Sources

Primary Sources

In the sciences, a primary source describes original research, while a secondary source analyzes or comments on a primary source or sources. For example, a research article is primary literature because it describes an original experiment and its results, while a review article is secondary literature because it collates multiple research articles to describe the current state of the field.

Examples of primary sources:

Research articles
Theses and dissertations
Conference proceedings
Reports
Patents
Unrefined data sets

Recommended Databases

Alt HealthWatch This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Good for scholarly sources relating to holistic and non-western approaches to health care and wellness.
Content type: Scholarly articles, magazine articles, pamphlets, booklets, special reports
Coverage dates: 1984-present
Language: English
Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Search here for master's and doctoral theses and dissertations from academic institutions around the world.
Content type: Dissertations and theses, bibliographies
Coverage dates: 1637-present
Most coverage comes from North American institutions. Many are full-text. Records show cited references, other publications with shared references, and later publications citing the work.
Language: English, Turkish, Chinese, French, Spanish, additional European languages
Keywords: Digital dissertation dissert thesis

Dryad
A data repository that makes research data discoverable, freely reusable, and cite-able. Any researcher associated with The Claremont Colleges can deposit their datasets from any discipline into Dryad at no cost. The Claremont Colleges Library contributes funds to this openly accessible resource in an effort to support initiatives and projects that advance open access.

Health Source - Nursing/Academic Edition This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Good for scholarly sources relating to nursing and allied health, including Lexi-PAL Drug guide.
Content type: Abstracts of scholarly articles, magazine articles, trade journal articles
Coverage dates: 1952-present
Language: English
Keywords: Nursing Academic
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Search here for scholarly content in the humanities and social sciences in a major database that many students are familiar with from high school.
Content type: Journal articles, eBooks, images, primary sources
Many journals include only backfiles and do not include current content. Use other databases to find the most recent issues of these journals.
Language: English, French, German, Spanish
MEDLINE This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Great for exploring research in biomedicine, public health, clinical care, bioengineering, and plant and animal sciences, run by the National Library of Medicine but using the interface and features familiar to users of Web of Science.
Content type: Abstracts of scholarly articles, case reports, clinical trials, systematic reviews, meta-analyses
Coverage dates: 1800s-present
MeSH headings and qualifiers are available for both searching and filtering your results. Easily explore an article bibliography, as well as sources that have cited the article since its publication, via the Citation Network feature. Create a free personal account to keep a comprehensive search history, create search alerts and citation alerts. Additional features related to author and journal profiles are available.
Language: English, German, French, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, etc.
Keywords: WoS
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Discover biomedical and life sciences research using this search tool run by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
Content type: Abstracts of scholarly articles, clinical trials, meta-anlayses, systematic reviews, books
Includes advanced search tools such as Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and the Clinical Queries feature. Personalized MyNCBI account features, such as email alerts, are only available by leaving the Library's instance of PubMed and accessing the resource through the open web site (pubmed.gov).
Language: English
Keywords: Pub Med
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Great for discovering scholarly research across a wide array of subject areas, primarily published in high-impact (highly cited) journals in the physical and life sciences, health sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Content type: Abstracts of scholarly articles, conference proceedings, book chapters
Coverage dates: 1965-present
Easily explore an article bibliography, as well as sources that have cited the article since its publication, via the Citation Network feature. Create a free personal account to keep a comprehensive search history, create search alerts and citation alerts. Additional features related to author and journal profiles are available.
Language: English, Russian, French, German, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, etc.
Text Mining: Allowed; only through Clarivate APIs
Keywords: Social Science Citation Index Science Citation Index Arts and Humanities Citation Index Conference Proceedings Citation Index Emerging Sources Citation Index WoS Knowledge

Health Data

American Hospital Association, Data & Insights
Data, statistics, trend reports, and projections available from the American Hospital Association (AHA) on all issues related to hospitals.

California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Good for data sets related to California-specific health and human services.
Content type: Data
"Open Data" describes data that are freely available, machine-readable, and formatted according to national technical standards to facilitate visibility and reuse of published data.
Language: English
Keywords: CHHS CalHHS Cal HHS
CDC Data & Statistics This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Open access resource containing data, statistics, tools and information relating to health topics.
Content type: Data, statistics, dashboards, data tools
Maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Language: English

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Data available regarding all issues related to Medicare/Medicaid, including data by provider type, for special interest populations, and trend reports.
Department of Public Health, Los Angeles County
Department of Public Health - San Bernardino County

HealthData.gov This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Gateway to health, human services, and health equity data sets supplied by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and state partners.
Content type: Data sets
Covers a wide variety of topics including: environmental health, medical devices, Medicare & Medicaid, social services, community health, mental health, and substance abuse.
Language: English
Keywords: Health Data Gov

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
The Kaiser Family Foundation provides data related to healthcare reform, minority health and health disparities, Medicaid/CHIP/Medicare, Costs and Insurance, and the Uninsured. The Kaiser Foundation includes brief fact sheets related to specific issues and larger data sets including charts and narratives with the most recent data.
Quick Facts on US Hospitals
Data from American Hospital Association.
Riverside University Health System-Public Health
USAID Demographic and Health Surveys
The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program collects, analyzes, and disseminates accurate and representative data on population, health, HIV, and nutrition through more than 400 surveys in over 90 countries.

World Health Organization Data This link opens in a new window
Why search here? Gateway to open data sets, statistics, reports and visualizations for world health information.
Content type: Data, statistics, dashboards, data tools
Language: English