Health

Start your research

Use this guide as a starting point to find information for your assignments. Discover the best keywords and databases to use for your topic by asking a librarian for a Subject Search.

Key databases

CINAHL Selected Full Text
CINAHL meets the information needs of nurses and allied health professionals.

Health Collection Full Text
The Health Collection includes research articles, reports and case studies dealing with health in Australia.

Mosby's Nursing Consult Full Text
Nursing Consult includes journals, text books, drug information and patient information sheets.

Nursing Resource Center Full Text
The Nursing Resource Center includes resources (care plans, journal articles and encyclopedias) designed to meet the assignment-related needs of nursing students.

SAGE Premier Full Text
SAGE Premier includes 550+ journal titles in business, humanities, social sciences, science, technology and medicine with full-text back to 1999.

Gale Databases Selected Full Text
The Gale Databases cover the arts and humanities, social sciences, science and technology. They includes peer-reviewed journal articles, ebooks and online encyclopedias.

Health & Medical Complete (in ProQuest) Selected Full Text
Heatlh & Medical Complete covers the medical sciences, immunology, pharmacy and pharmacology, nursing, physical fitness, hygiene and surgery.

PsycINFO Selected Full Text
PsycINFO indexes scholarly literature in the behavioral sciences and mental health. ProQuest Help

PsycInfo is the single most useful database for students enrolled in Counselling programmes. Psychiatry Online in the Useful databses section below is also particularly valuable.

Worth a look

APA-FT Australian flag Full Text
Australian Public Affairs Full-Text provides access to articles from nearly 400 journals in the social sciences and humanities.

Cochrane Library Full Text
The Cochrane Library covers evidence-based medicine and evidence-based health care.

Emerald
Emerald is a collection of over 190 peer-reviewed journals in management and related disciplines. Emerald Help

Health management and quality assurance are two areas in which Emerald is strong.

Humanities and Social Science Collection Australian flag Selected Full Text
This database abstracts research on all aspects of cultural, creative, Indigenous and social life in Australia.

JBI COnNECT+ Full Text
The JBI COnNECT+ site provides a range of resources in the field of evidence-based medicine.

Psychiatry Online Full Text
Psychiatry online includes access to the full-text of peer-reviewed journals published by the American Psychiatric Association, the newsletter Psychiatric News, DSM-IV-TR, DSM-IV-TR® Handbook of Differential Diagnosis, DSM-IV-TR® Casebook and its Treatment Companion, and the other psychiatric text books produced by the Association.

PubMed Selected Full Text
PubMed provides access to over 15 million MEDLINE citations dating back to the mid-1960s.

RURAL Australian flag
RURAL indexes research on rural health and the practice and educational needs of health providers.

Social Services Abstracts Selected Full Text
This database covers current research on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development.

Sociological Abstracts Selected Full Text
Sociological Abstracts offers international coverage of sociology and related disciplines, both theoretical and applied.

TOXLINE
TOXLINE offers rapid access to information in all areas of toxicology, including chemicals and pharmaceuticals, pesticides, environmental pollutants, and mutagens and teratogens.

ScienceDirect Full Text
Science Direct offers full-text access to over 200 Elsevier journals.

SpringerLink Full Text
Peer-reviewed journals in astronomy, chemistry, computer science, economics, engineering, environmental sciences, geosciences, life sciences, mathematics, medicine and physics.

Taylor & Francis Full Text
Taylor & Francis journals cover the humanities, economics, management, geography, environmental sciences and the social sciences.

Web of Science
The Web of Science abstracts the scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

Wiley Online Library Full Text
The Wiley Online Library includes current journals in a wide range of disciplines.

Link to Rural Medical School databases

A number of additional specialised clinical databases are listed on the Research Guide for Rural Medicine page. Click here to see this listing with live links and database descriptions.

Assignment help

HS 265 Research Methods in Health

Guide to using CINAHL
Guide to using MEDLINE on PubMed

HS 413 Foundations of herbalism

Encyclopedias and dictionaries

Gale Virtual Reference Library titles relevant to health include:

Encyclopedia of Aging
Encyclopedia of Pain
Encyclopedia of Public Health
Gale Encyclopedia of Children's Health
Gale Encyclopedia of Genetic Disorders
Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing & Allied Health
Handbook of Death and Dying
Infectious Diseases in Context
World of Microbiology and Immunology

Oxford Reference
Oxford Reference offers a range of dictionaries and encyclopedias listed by subject.

SAGE Knowledge
SAGE Knowledge is a set of multidisciplinary encyclopedias.

Among the useful Sage reference titles are: Encyclopedia of Cancer, Encyclopedia of Counseling, Encyclopedia of Health & Aging, Encyclopedia of Global Health, Encyclopedia of Obesity and Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. Click the link for more titles.

Drug information

Select from a list of recommended databases providing information on drugs.

Websites & Internet resources

Statistical sources

Australian Bureau of Statistics — online access to all ABS publications from 1998.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare — for health and welfare statistics and information, many publications available in .pdf format.
WHO Statistical Information System — WHOSIS world health statistics.
National Center for Health Statistics — link to US Health statistics.

Texts and images

Atlas of the Body — anatomy and medical illustrations by major section from the American Medical Association.
Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body — full-text version of the 1918 edition.
Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
The Merck Manual Of Geriatrics — full-text, searchable title (updated, 3rd edition, 2000)
Virtual Pediatric Hospital — Digital health sciences library with full text resources.

General health resources

Australian Indigenous Health InfoNet Bibliography Maintained at Edith Cowan University, provides references to reports, journal articles and other literature. Click on 'Resources'.
Australian Medical Websites A comprehensive listing of Australian medical websites.
NLM Gateway Access the resources of the National Library of Medicine, including searching MEDLINE/PubMed, through a single gateway.
Biomed Central Links to several hundred internet health journals.
FreeMedicalJournals.com A website providing access to free medical journals on the Internet.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Sites A series of links maintained by the Doctors Reform Society of Australia.
AHRQ: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality US generated news, reports and other information aimed at both consumers and health care providers.
NHMRC - permits downloading of many NHMRC publications in .pdf format.
National Rural Health Alliance Inc. provides links to conference papers, journals, data and information on rural health matters in Australia and overseas.
NSW Health Department Publications, information, medical releases, factsheets and job opportunities.
World Health Organization includes access to WHOSIS - statistical information worldwide, the WHO library catalogue and some reports.

Programme-related links

Complementary & Herbal Medicine
HerbMed Interactive, electronic herbal database with hyperlinked access to scientifc data underlying the use of herbs for health. Evidence based with links to Medline.
Hom-inform Website of the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, including the Hom-inform database on homeopathy, a thesaurus of relevant terms and pdf documents to download.
Longwood Herbal Taskforce Information about herbal medicine for both clinicians and patients, compiled by a team of experts using a systematic review process.
Taubman Medical Library Homeopathy Collection - searchable database with full text homeopathic monographs and pamphlets dating from the mid 19th Century.

Health management
Centre for Health Economics Established at York University in 1983, contains publications and research information.

Nursing
The Nursing Portal - links to 6000+ nursing related sites.

Consumer health and medicine
The Health Network Australian and New Zealand consumer health site.
Health Insite sponsored by the Australian government.

Evaluating health sites & Online Tutorials
Evaluating Internet Health Information: A Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine
Discern A questionnaire aimed at consumers that permits systematic evaluation of sites.
Internet Medic Teach yourself about Internet resources for the medical sciences.