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HLTH 130: Introduction to Public and Community Health

Instructor: Dr. Donna Howard

Page maintained by Tom Harrod, UM Libraries

The University of Maryland Libraries have many resources that will help you to complete your HLTH 130 projects. If you need additional information, please contact the librarian for Public Health, Tom Harrod.

Evaluating Information Sources

When evaluating websites or any other source of information, there are some important questions to keep in mind (this list adapted from the following guide):
  • Accuracy
    How does this resource fit with others you have seen? Are arguments well supported?
  • Authority
    Who created this resource? What are the author's credentials?
  • Content
    Does this resource contain objective (factual) or subjective (opinion-based) arguments? What types of sources (if any) does this resource cite to support its arguments?
  • Currency
    When was this resource created? For websites, when was the last time it was updated? How old are the sources that are cited to support their arguments?
  • Purpose
    Is this resource intended to entertain? inform? Is this a Scholarly resource? Is there a discernible bias? For websites, is this a '.com' site that is trying to sell you something?

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Identifying and Understanding Different Information Types

When looking for information, there are a lot of different types of resources out there - we will look at several common ones:

General/Popular Information Resources

  • Written for a general audience
  • Typically what you would see in a bookstore or on a magazine stand
  • Intended to inform and/or entertain
  • Popular journals do not undergo 'peer-review' process
  • Can be found in many of the article databases to which the University of Maryland subscribes
  • Examples: Prevention, Sports Illustrated, Scientific American, etc.
Academic/Scholarly Information Resources
  • Written by/for experts in a given field
  • Usually these are available through academic libraries or anywhere there is a need for the highly specialized information contained within these publications
  • Intended to inform
  • Undergo 'peer-review' process prior to publication (see below)
  • To focus on these resources when searching UM article databases, be sure to limit your search to 'scholarly' or 'peer-reviewed' literature
  • Examples: American Journal of Public Health, Genetic Epidemiology, Family and Community Health, etc.
Government Information Resources
  • Produced by government agencies (local, state-wide, national, or international)
  • Intended to report on agency activities, assist policy makers, keep citizens informed, etc.
  • Government agencies around the United States and the World publish vast quantities of statistics and papers on public health issues
  • These resources are an excellent (and often over-looked) source for health information as they usually go through a rigorous acceptance process before publication
  • The UM libraries are an official depository of government information and so we have a lot of government resources - to locate these resources in the UM Libraries catalog, do an 'advanced search' and limit your 'location' to "U.S. Government Information (All)"
  • To help narrow in on the government information resources that would be most helpful to you, think about which government agency would be interested in your topic (National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, etc.)
  • More and more, government information is freely available online - to learn how to discover relevant government health information on the web, see the section below
  • Government websites can be identified by '.gov' suffix

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Government Information Resources

The government produces a lot of free resources on public health related topics. These sites are a great source of consumer health information. (Tip: you can limit google.com searches to government websites by adding 'site:.gov' to the end of your search terms)
Here are just a few sites:

Health Information Portals

  • Healthfinder - from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), this site features links to many health information resources
  • MedLine Plus - Source of consumer health information from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) - brings together information from many different government and non-profit agencies
Governmental Health Agencies (From Local to International)

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Finding Resources in the University of Maryland Library

  • Library Catalog - The Library Catalog contains all of the holdings which make up the University of Maryland Library's physical collection, this includes:
    • Books
    • Print Journals
    • Newspapers
    • Government Documents
    • Microfilm, Microfiche, etc.
    • Audio-Visual Materials (DVDs, CDs, etc.)


  • Research Port - Research Port is the gateway to the electronic resources to which the University of Maryland library's subscribe - this includes:
    • Article Databases - search engines which specialize in academic literature - each database covers specific subset of the academic literature, usually based on subject (e.g., kinesiology, molecular biology, English literature, etc.)
    • Electronic Journals - electronic versions of print journals, provide access to full print content on-line

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Choosing the Right Article Database

The University of Maryland subscribes to hundreds of article databases and each one covers a specific range of subjects. Below I have listed a number of databases which you may find helpful in locating articles on your topic of interest. However there are many more listed in Research Port - if you'd like further assistance with this, please don't hesitate to contact the librarian for Public Health, Tom Harrod (tharrod@umd.edu).


To learn how you can access a particular article that you have identified through an article database, press the yellow 'Find-It' button


General

Kinesiology / Public Health / Medicine If you are doing a project that spans multiple disciplines, you may find the following articles databases useful:

Psychology

Education Economics Communication Multicultural, Gender, and Minority Studies Sociology Biology History

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Identifying Primary Articles

For the purposes of this assignment you will want to consult only Primary, Scholarly articles - the discussion below will help you to learn the distinguishing characteristics of the different kinds of articles.

The following information is adapted from the library's "Identifying Periodical Types" guide - click there for more information.

Here is a link which highlights some of the defining features of a Primary, Scholarly article

PRIMARY literature:

  • contains an "experimental methods" section
  • recounts experiments that have been been performed by the authors of the articles themselves
  • contains "raw data" compiled by the authors which will usually be presented in tables or charts
  • attempts to address a specific hypothesis
  • has references which give pertinent background information for the hypothesis being addressed in the paper
SECONDARY literature:
  • often takes the form of a review article
  • contains a summary of experiments performed by the author as well as other researchers
  • may contain tables and figures, but usually not as many as a primary source
  • is a good place to go to learn about a field of study with which one is unfamiliar
  • has references which give a history of the research that has been done in a specific area of study

OTHER/INTERMEDIATE literature:

  • Systematic Reviews
  • Meta-Analyses
  • Not uncommon in Public Health
  • Taking data from multiple primary sources and analyzing it anew

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Peer Review

"Peer Review" refers to the process whereby scholarly articles are read by several researchers who work in the field that is the subject of the article. These "peers" critique the article in terms of:

  • the appropriateness of the experimental methods used
  • whether or not the conclusion(s) given necessarily follow from the data presented
  • the novelty of the work presented
  • etc.
If these "peers" determine that an article is worthy of publication they will so advise the editor of the publication to which the article has been submitted. Oftentimes however these reviewers will suggest new experiments, alternate conclusions, and so forth which must be addressed by the author(s) of the article. In this way, articles go through a rigorous and iterative evaluation process before they are published. It is important to understand what peer-review is, as all scholarly articles will undergo this process - this is one of ways by which the credibility of an article is established.

If you are not sure whether the article you have is peer-reviewed or not, go to Ulrich's, type in the name of the journal where you found the article and look for the little referee's jersey next to the journal's title - this indicates that it is refereed which is another name for peer-reviewed

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Public Health Reference Materials

The University of Maryland libraries provide access to many reference materials on the topic of public health, here are just a few:

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Plagiarism / The Honor Pledge

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, along with all other forms of academic dishonesty, is a serious issue at the University of Maryland. Plagiarism refers to any of the following activities:

  • "Copying word for word, and neglecting to both enclose the words in quotation marks and to cite the source"
  • "Summarizing or paraphrasing someone else's words or ideas and failing to cite the source"
  • "Reproducing the organization or structure of another person's work and failing to cite it"
  • "Any other act in which someone presents someone else's intellectual material as their own, whether it involves graphics, code, data, charts, etc."

(extracted from the webpage "What is Plagiarism")

For more information, check the library's webpage on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Honor Pledge

It is important to include the university's honor pledge on all assignments that you hand in. At the top of the first page of your paper, copy the following statement and then leave a space below for your signature

I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this assignment/examination.

Go to the Office of Student Conduct page for more information about the honor pledge.

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Writing a Paper in APA Style

For this class you will need to write your papers using the APA style. This means formatting your paper in the APA style as well as making your citations in APA style - check the resources below for more assistance:

  • APA Formatting Guide (from Purdue University's "Online Writing Lab" or "OWL" - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/)

The University of Maryland Libraries subscribe to EndNote Web - a citation management program which allows you to download bibliographic information from our article databases and create bibliographies. To register for an account, simply go to 'Science Citation Index (Web of Science)' (listed above) and click on the 'My EndNote Web' link on the top of the page. If you need help using EndNote Web, feel free to set up an appointment with the librarian for the Kinesiology department, Tom Harrod (tharrod@umd.edu)

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Getting Help from a Librarian

If you are having trouble with any aspect of what has been covered above, don't hesitate to contact a reference librarian. The librarian covering the School of Public Health is Tom Harrod (tharrod@umd.edu / 301-405-7253 / 1526A Chemistry Library, Chemistry Building) - feel free to email, call, or just drop by for assistance in finding and evaluating articles, properly citing your references, etc.

Reference librarians are here to assist faculty and students at the University of Maryland in finding appropriate sources of information for their specific needs - so take advantage of this resource.

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Last modified: August 17, 2010

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