Research & Subject Guides: Health, Environment, Science and Technology Reporting: Health Resources

Places to Start

MedlinePlus
MedlinePlus is a resource from the National Library of Medicine that is available on the open Internet. Provides information on health topics and drugs, dictionaries and encyclopedias, physician and hospital directories, and more. It is aimed at the general public.
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MedlinePlus is the National Institutes of Health's Web site for patients and their families and friends. Produced by the National Library of Medicine, it brings you information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues in language you can understand. MedlinePlus offers reliable, up-to-date health information, anytime, anywhere, for free.

You can use MedlinePlus to learn about the latest treatments, look up information on a drug or supplement, find out the meanings of words, or view medical videos or illustrations. You can also get links to the latest medical research on your topic or find out about clinical trials on a disease or condition.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Provides up-to-date information on infectious disease outbreaks and other public health issues. The CDC is a federal agency dedicated to combating disease. It contains authoritative information and recommendations for physicians and the public. Often has information on international disease outbreaks.
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For over 60 years, CDC has been dedicated to protecting health and promoting quality of life through the prevention and control of disease, injury, and disability. We are committed to programs that reduce the health and economic consequences of the leading causes of death and disability, thereby ensuring a long, productive, healthy life for all people.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Includes 27 institutions, such as the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health. Each institution's site is filled with valuable information.
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services , is the nation’s medical research agency—making important discoveries that improve health and save lives.
Pan American Health Organization
Regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO).
World Health Organization (WHO)
For international health issues, especially AIDS, TB and comparisons among countries, the United Nations World Health Organization is a good place to start.
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WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
American Heart Association
American Cancer Society
American Lung Association
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Family Physicians

Statistics

National Center for Health Statistics
Part of the CDC. Provides statistics on births, marriages, deaths, illnesses. If you want to know how many children died of AIDS in the United States in 2004 or which states had the highest number of cancer cases, this is the place to go.
Population Reference Bureau
THE PRB is a non-profit group providing figures, interactive databases, and charts about population and health issues around the world. You can graphically compare countries on multiple parameters.
Kaiser Family Foundation
Excellent source on the healthcare system and health care reform.
StateHealthFacts.org
From the Kaiser Family Foundation. Provides comparative health data for every state.
FedStats
Provides statistics on a variety of topics, not only related to health.
ChildStats.gov
From Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Provides statistics on a number of issues, not only those related to health.

Libraries

SBU Health Sciences Library
SB University Libraries
Website for the Melville Library.
National Network of Libraries of Medicine
Find other regional libaries.

Databases

ScienceDirect
Fulltext access to selected scholarly journals and e-books. Citations and abstracts for books and journals outside of SBU's fulltext subscription. Covers all disciplines with emphasis in the sciences (including medicine) and social sciences.

Access Note: SBU only subscribes to some titles in this collection.
Note: Effective January 1, 2016, ScienceDirect will no longer support Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). Compatibility mode in IE9 or higher reverts the browser back to IE7 or IE8 behavior. If you experience issues accessing ScienceDirect using IE9 or higher, please disable the compatibility view mode in your IE browser.

Note2: Effective December 2016, Science Direct will also no longer support Internet Explorer 9.
MEDLINE (Ebsco) with full text
Date coverage varies. Medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, etc. Uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree, tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 4,800 current biomedical journals. Created by the National Library of Medicine.

MEDLINE from Web of Konwledge
1950-present. Medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, etc. Uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree, tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 4,800 current biomedical journals. Created by the National Library of Medicine.

PubMed Tutorials

PubMed provides a variety of tutorials to help improve your search results.

Use MeSH to Build a Better PubMed Query
A video tutorial on using MeSH to improve PubMed searches.
PubMed Tutorials
Provides a full list of tutorials on searching, managing results, saving searches, using filters, and more.
PubMed Basics
A tri-fold overview of PubMed.
Searching PubMed with MeSH
A tri-fold covering MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) searching in PubMed.

Review Articles

Review articles summarize research to date in a given field. They are based on literature reviews. They can help you:

Find out who is doing research in that field
Where researchers disagree
What topics future research might address

As such they can be a good place to get an overview of a topic.

See this page from the University of Texas at Austin for more information.

Look for a Publication Type filter in the database you are searching and select Review to limit your results to Review Articles only.

Relevant Research Guides

Evidence-Based Medicine
by Jamie Saragossi Last Updated Mar 14, 2023 61721 views this year
Health Administration
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Medicine
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Neurobiology
by Mona Ramonetti Last Updated Mar 18, 2022 55 views this year
Nursing
by Jamie Saragossi Last Updated Sep 6, 2023 11542 views this year
Physical Therapy
by Michael Bailou Huang Last Updated Nov 21, 2022 827 views this year
Psychology
by Chris Kretz Last Updated Aug 28, 2023 1439 views this year
Public Health
by Jessica Koos Last Updated Dec 21, 2022 229 views this year
Social Welfare
by Laurel Scheinfeld Last Updated Sep 7, 2023 9637 views this year

Health News Reviews

HealthNewsReviews.org
"HealthNewsReview.org evaluates health care journalism, advertising, marketing, public relations and other messages that may influence consumers and provides criteria that consumers can use to evaluate these messages themselves. Improving the quality and flow of health care news and information to consumers can be a significant step towards meaningful health care reform."

Thanks to Elizabeth Bass

This page is based in large part on Elizabeth Bass' Background Sources for Health and Medical Reporting handout.

Reference Librarian

Email Me

Contact:

Central Reading Room

Frank Melville Jr., Memorial Library C-1600

631.632.7110

More Research Guides & Tutorials

Research Guides from the HSL
MedlinePlus Tour
The tour lasts approximately 8 minutes.

Merck Manuals

Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
For healthcare professionals.
Merck Manual Home Health Handbook
For patients and caregivers.
Merck Veterinary Manual

Finding Info on Health Care Professionals

Office of the Professions
From NYSED.gov. Provides online verification of professional licenses from the state of New York.
New York State Physician Profile
Find education and related background information, check for legal actions, etc.
Professional Misconduct and Physician Discipline
From the NY State Department of Health Office of Professional Medical Conduct. Provides a search for physicians, physicians assistants, and specialist assistants who have been disciplined since 1990. Open investigations are not included. For actions prior to 1990, contact the Office of Progessional Misconduct.
AIM DocFinder
Provided by Administrators in Medicine (AIM). Provides licensing, background and disciplinary information on physicians and other health care practitioners.
Exclusions Database
From the Office of Inspector General Department of Health & Human Services. Provides a searchable database of health care practitioners who have been excluded from participation in the Medicare, Medicaid and all Federal health care programs. Great place to find a list of doctors who have defaulted on their health education assistance loans.

Health, Environment, Science and Technology Reporting: Health Resources