NURS 340

Contact

	Alison (Ali) Konieczny
	Email
	Phone: 231-591-3696
	Office: FLITE 315

Public Health Issues

Finding Library Materials

Starting your Research

Finding Info. using FLITE Databases

Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles

Evaluating your Articles

Healthcare Policy Resources

Statistical Resources

APA Citation Style Links

NURS 340

Learning About Public Health Issues

If you're wondering what some major public health issues are, please visit these sites:

Michigan Community Health Information: Use the left-hand navigation to find statistical information on major health issues
PubMed search with Community Health Nursing as a major topic
Healthy People 2010: Leading Health Indicators: A list of some major public health issues. Also, you may want to look at the current Healthy People 2020 website
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR): Produced by the CDC to provide public health information
World Health News: Produced by Harvard to cover "critical public health issues from around the world."

Finding Library Materials

The snapshot of the Library Homepage below highlights the Find menu which is a good starting point to find various library resources, such as books, articles, journals, subject guides, etc.

Starting your Research

You may want to start off by gathering background information from books, many of which are available online. Please see the Finding Online Books Guide.

After gathering background information on your topic, you will want to focus your search in general and research databases to find articles on your topic. When doing research from off-campus, you will need to log-on to use databases and other online resources licensed by FSU. Simply use your MyFSU username and password to log-on. For more information on off-campus database access, click here.

Finding Information using FLITE Databases

PubMed
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This is the largest biomedical database, with over 20 million citations. Search using keywords and then limit your search if necessary using the Advanced Search, related articles link, or selecting the Review link to see only review articles. The Related Citations link works really well in PubMed, so when you find an article that is on topic, click on Related Articles! You may want to search on "Community Health Nursing" and then add the topic that you are interested in.

Click here for PubMed tutorials

CINAHL
The Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) currently gathers information from more than 3000 journals. Consider using the Advanced Search, and at the bottom of the screen you will see a limit for Special Interest, where you can select Public Health. Once you've run a search, use the options on the left-hand side to narrow your date range, and consider using Subject: Major Heading to limit your search to a major topic of interest.

Click here for a CINAHL tutorial

Health & Wellness Resource Center
This database is oriented towards consumer health information and is a good place to find resources that would be directed at patients. Information in this database includes medical encyclopedias, journal articles, pamphlets, videos, and health assessment tools.

General OneFile
This is a general database that will be useful for finding information on about any topic you can come up with! Start off using the Find Subject search box, and if you don't find your subject, use the search box at the top of the screen to search by keyword. Also consider switching to the Advanced Search that will let you limit your articles to particular journals, as well as to full-text, peer-reviewed, etc. Academic Onefile is a database that will have many similar articles, but will also have unique content, so try them both! Academic OneFile operates in the same manner as General OneFile.

MedlinePlus/Consumer Health: Another highly useful resource from the National Library of Medicine (as is PubMed), this resource provides reliable information oriented towards patients. Increase your ability to provide information to patients who do not speak English by using the vast resources in multiple languages available through MedlinePlus.

Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles

In some databases you will see an option for a Text version of the document or a PDF version. In general, the PDF version is preferable as it is most often a scanned version of the original and will therefore contain the graphics. When e-mailing, printing, or saving a group of articles, be sure to select the full-text or PDF option if available.

Some databases contain little full-text, but allow you to link out to Ferris' holdings or the interlibrary loan request form. You will notice the Find it! links following individual citations that will indicate the availability of the article online, in the library, or the need to interlibrary loan the article. Click on the Go button and you will be taken to the online version, library holdings record, or interlibrary loan form to obtain the article you desire. See the example below:

Sample Article Link-Out:

Evaluating your Articles

When writing research papers, scholarly articles from Academic Journals and other reliable sources, such as reference books should be utilized. There is a great article about Peer Review that you may want to read. For more help determining if an article is scholarly, peer-reviewed or refereed (those terms all mean the same thing), please click here. The databases discussed above can help you locate reliable information. If you are using websites as sources of information, be sure to evaluate the website. For more information on how to evaluate a website, please click here.