Subject Guides: BPH 101: Introduction to the U.S. Health System: Our library session

Today's Session

Today, we will be talking about using library resources to find journals and databases and evaluating sources. By the end of this session, you should be able to:

Use the library website to find journals and databases relevant to Public Health
Use PubMed and the library journal search to search in specific journals
Recognize different types of sources and think critically about their content and purpose

Important links for today's class:

USM Library Homepage

*Public Health
by Meg Everist Last Updated Mar 19, 2024 116 views this year

Useful Databases

Annual Reviews Online This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive, timely collections of critical reviews published each year for 51 focused disciplines within the biological, medical, physical, and social sciences. Use ILLiad for articles not found online. Coverage varies by collection.
CINAHL with Full Text This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) with Full Text provides full text for over 500 nursing and allied health journals, and indexing/abstracting for an additional 2500. Coverage: From 1981 for most titles. Updated
PubMed This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Developed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PubMed is a major medical database. It provides access to bibliographic/abstracting information from MEDLINE, plus out-of-scope citations from certain MEDLINE journals; citations that precede the date that a journal was selected for MEDLINE indexing; and some additional life science journals that submit full-text and receive a qualitative review by NLM. Included are links to many sites with full-text articles.

In-class activites

The Public Health guide linked below has the link to PubMed (in the Databases - Core tab) as well as information from Purdue OWL on APA citation.

*Public Health
by Meg Everist Last Updated Mar 19, 2024 116 views this year

Part 1: Comparing types of information sources

Sources Comparison Table (Google Doc)
This is set to "anyone at the University of Southern Maine with the link can edit" so if you can't access it you may have to sign into your MyUSM portal.

Part 2: Searching for academic journal articles

Finding Journal Articles instructions/activity (Google Doc)
Note: Google will prompt you to make your own copy of the document for this activity. You will need to be signed into your maine.edu account.

Wrap Up

Post-class check in: 6 word response

Navigating the library website

Selected Journals in Public Health for this course

Remember: you can search the PubMed database and look for these journals (aka: source) in your results, or you can go to Journals & eBooks on the library homepage and click on Find Journals & eBooks. Once the journal is displayed, you can "search within" it.

American Journal of Public Health
Health Affairs
JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association)
Journal of Health & Social Behavior
Medical Care Research and Review
NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine)
Preventing Chronic Disease (open access)

Anatomy of a Scholarly Article
Resource from NCSU Libraries breaking down the different sections of an academic research article

Research and Instruction Librarian (Health Sciences)

Meg Everist