Resources for Research Topic and Geography Selection
When you have a public health topic in mind, and are not sure what city, state, region, or even what country has a prevalence of this issue, use these:
- CDC Health TopicsChoose from the menu of Popular Health Topics or click the first letter of the health topic you have in mind, then use the resources provided to identify places in the United States that are dealing with the health topic of your choice.
- Global Health This link opens in a new windowThis database provides access to full-text articles dedicated to public health from 1973 to present.
When you have a geographic area in mind, and are not sure what public health topic to choose for your research project, use these:
- County Health RankingsSelect a state and county in the U.S. to find out what public health topics are most relevant for that location.
- World Health Organization - List of CountriesIf you have a country in mind, use the data about health issues in that country to choose your topic.
Activity 1
Activity 2: Source describing scope of selected issue/problem
Using either of the databases linked here, Academic Search Complete or Global Health, construct a beginning search following the patterns given in the examples below.
- Use one box for each IDEA.
- Use the asterisk to logically truncate words.
- Use one box to describe relevant geography, separating logical alternatives with OR.
- Search the main ideas (not geography) in the TITLE field.
NOTE: Geography is difficult. You can try a city/state combination, but odds are against it working. You'll probably have to broaden the search geographically!
TOPIC: Childhood obesity among low-income communities in Alameda County
TOPIC: Asthma among school-age children in Richmond CA
TOPIC: Diabetes among Latinos in Los Angeles, CA
Run that initial search. Look closely at the relevant items retrieved, especially at the words/phrases labeled SUBJECTS. You are looking for relevant language describing each of the main ideas in your search.
Once you have found relevant language, edit your search so that you are searching in the SUBJECT field rather than the TITLE field.
In the examples above, our initial language was good for the 1st two examples. However, this is what the 3rd search ended up with. There was no consistent SUBJECT term for the idea of LATINO.
