I've divided this page into two sections. The first provides you with
some
tips on searching for material on Medline, while the second
section provides links to web pages, reports, and other databases.
There's also a section on burden of disease.For
links to statistical organisations and databases click
here
Click
here to search the catalogue for electronic resources in
epidemiology
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.
You will find material on epidemiology and epidemiologic methods in Medline, but you will need to be aware of the thesaurus (MeSH) terms used to search for the various topics. Below
are
some examples of the language Medline uses to describe the concepts in
this field.
MeSH - Epidemiologic Factors
MeSH - Epidemiologic Methods
MeSH - Epidemiologic Research Design
MeSH - Epidemiology
MeSH - Health Surveys
MeSH - Morbidity
MeSH - Mortality
MeSH - Quality-Adjusted Life Years
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.
There is another option for searching
the epidemiology
of specific diseases, or classes of disease.
To search for articles on the
epidemiology of
specific disease you can simply add the subheading "epidemiology" to the
term.
For a list of the abbreviations used for subheadings in PubMed
click
here
Try using the search structure below to find articles on the
epidemiology
of lung cancer in relation to smoking.
COMBINE
Lung Neoplasms/Epidemiology (MeSH
Term)
Epidemiology of tumors or cancer of the
lung.
AND
Smoking (MeSH term)
Inhaling and exhaling the smoke of tobacco
or
something similar to tobacco.
PubMed Search Formulation
lung neoplasms/ep[majr] AND smoking[majr]
AND english[lang]
This search strategy uses the subheading
epidemiology
"ep" associated with lung cancer. The section in the square
brackets
includes majr - which focuses the search on articles where the
subject
is a major issue in the article. The search is then limited to articles
which include smoking, also as a major subject, and which are in
English,
or which have English abstracts.
PubMed's default setting is to "explode"
all terms,
and so this search will include the subcategories of lung neoplasms
listed
below.
Lung Neoplasms
Carcinoma, Bronchogenic
Coin Lesion, Pulmonary
Pancoast's Syndrome
Pulmonary Blastoma
and the subcategory of Smoking
- Marijuana
Smoking.
Click here to see how it works. PubMed
Search.
Relating Your Search to a Specific Country or State
Medline allows you to
search for
health information as it relates to individual countries. For example
MeSH - Australia
Exploding this thesaurus term will
search for
Australia as a whole, and the individual states and territories as
well,
whereas if you simply search for the word "Australia*" you will miss
the
specific individual states.
When searching for material relating to
specific
countries it can be useful to search the name of the country as a word
too, with appropriate truncation. For example
Australia* - truncating the word
will search
for Australia, or Australian as words in any field.
The search formulation will need
brackets to ensure
that the Boolean logic is executed in the correct sequence.
Try the sample search on the
epidemiology of lung
cancer in relation to smoking, but this time limit the search to
Australian
studies.
PubMed Search Formulation
lung neoplasms/ep[mh] AND smoking[mh] AND
(Australia[mh]
OR Australia*) AND english[lang]
Click here to see how it works. PubMed
Search.
WARNING
When you are limiting a search using the epidemiology subheading ep,
you will find that you can add it to either the disease term OR the
geographic
term OR both, but the results will be very different!
For Australian material don't forget to
check
Meditext too - it uses the same thesaurus terms as
Medline.
Meditext
Access restricted to staff and students of Adelaide University
Bibliographic database which indexes and abstracts articles from Australian health and medical journals which are not indexed in Medline. It covers all aspects of health and medicine with an emphasis on clinical medicine and paraprofessional fields. Includes journals, conference proceedings, government reports, selected monographs and the full text of most NHMRC sessions. Contains full text for a number of publications for which there is no other full text online source available.
Other Australian Resources
Central Northern Adelaide Health Service: A Social Health Atlas
From the Public Health Information Development Unit (PHIDU), a collaborating unit of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, located at The University of Adelaide in the Australian Institute for Social Research.
HealthMap
(A Social Health Atlas of South Australia, 2nd ed. 1996)
Access is available only within the Library - it is not
networked
Aims to provide health services with the best possible information
to assist their work, by publishing a large range of information in map
format. Provides an overview of the health status and patterns of use
of
health and welfare services in different areas of the state, in the
context
of socio-economic status. The atlas contains maps categorised under the
broad headings of:
Demography and socioeconomic status
Income Support payments
Health status
Utilisation of health and welfare services
Location of health and welfare services
HealthWIZ
Access is available only within the Library - it is not
networked
Consists of statistical data held in the National Social Health
Database
which can be used to understand and describe characteristics of local
populations,
analyse patterns and trends in the use of local health services,
establish
patterns of health and illness at a local level, discover geographic
variations
in health related characteristics of populations, and demonstrate links
between health, service use and socio-economic factors relating to
health.
It is intended for use by workers in the fields of community health and
welfare, planners, advocates, researchers, educators, and students.
It is produced for the Australian Commonwealth Department of
Health
and Aged Care, by a company called Prometheus Information.The
HealthWIZ CD-ROM is
available for loan, and supporting documentation
is available at the HealthWIZ
web site.
 A Social Health Atlas of Australia. 2nd. edition, 1999
A social health atlas of Australia, by John Glover, Kevin Harris, and Sarah Tennant. Public Health Information Development Unit, University of Adelaide, 1999. This publication consists of 9 volumes - one for Australia as a whole, and one for each state or territory.
A Social Health Atlas of South Australia, 3rd edition, 2006
By John Glover, Diana Hetzel, Lucinda Glover, Sarah Tenant, and Anthea Page. Public Health Information Development Unit, University of Adelaide, March 2006.
Burden of Disease
Burden of Disease (AIHW)
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's burdern of disease
page, with links to data, and the full text of a selected
publications.
Burden of Disease: Health Status of Victorians - Victorian Government Health Information, Australia
Burden of disease estimates for Victoria, its local government areas and regions, for broad disease groups and/or specific diseases, by sex and up to 9 age groups are available.
Report
of the NSW Chief Health Officer: Burden of disease
The full text of the Burden of Disease chapter of this report The Health of the People
of New South Wales -
Report of the Chief Health Officer. NSW Department of
Health, Sydney, 2002 is available either
in .html or as series of .pdf files.
South
Australian Burden of Disease Study
The aim of the
South
Australian Burden of Disease study is to describe the average amount of
ill
health and premature death occurring in the South Australian community
for the
years 1999-2001.
WHOSIS
Burden of Disease project
A range of resources associated with the WHO Statistical Information
System's Global Burden of Disease project.
Other Sources
CDC WONDER
CDC WONDER (Wide-ranging OnLine Data for Epidemiologic Research)
is an
easy-to-use, menu-driven system that makes the information resources of
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) available to
public health professionals and the public at large. It provides access
to a wide array of public health information.
Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics
As part of the Harvard University Library Open Collections Program, Contagion offers valuable insights to students of the history of medicine and to researchers seeking an historical context for current epidemiology, contributing to the understanding of the global, social–history, and public–policy implications of disease.
Dictionary
of (Ecological) Epidemiology
A Dictionary of (Ecological) Epidemiology
is
edited by Jonathan Swinton.
eBMJ
-- Collected Resources: Barker Hypothesis
eBMJ
-- Collected Resources: Other Epidemiology
eBMJ
-- Collected Resources: Screening
eBMJ
-- Collected Resources: Socioeconomic Determinants of Health
eMJA:
Articles on Statistics, epidemiology and research design
Epi
Info
Epi Info is a public domain
software
package designed for the global community of public health
practitioners
and researchers and available from the CDC web site. It allows for
easy
form and database construction, data entry, and analysis with
epidemiologic
statistics, maps, and graphs.
Epidemiology
and Biostatistics
Links from the Karolinska Institute Library.
Epidemiology
for the Uninitiated. 4th ed. 1997
Here you will find the full text of the 4th
edition
of Epidemiology for the Uninitiated, by D Coggon, Geoffrey Rose, and
DJP
Barker. BMJ Publishing Group 1997.
Health Report - Epidemiology
Transcripts from Radio National's Health Report, with Norman Swan.
Population
Research and Outcome Studies - PROS Publications
From the Department of Health, South Australia. Some reports
available in .pdf format.
Population
Research and Outcome Studies - PROS Reports
From the Department of Health, South Australia. Many reports
are available in .pdf format.
Returns
on Investment in Public Health: An Epidemiological and Economic Analysis
Returns on investment in public health : an epidemiological and
economic
analysis prepared for the Department of Health and Ageing / Applied
Economics,
by Peter Abelson and others. Canberra : Dept. of Health and Ageing,
2003.
Supercourse
- Epidemiology, the Internet and Global Health
This course is designed to provide an
overview
on epidemiology and the Internet for medical and health related
students
around the world.
The
World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Epidemiology
This page is maintained by the Department
of
Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San
Francisco.
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