Public Health Education

Use your search strategy to find articles and other digital resources in the databases listed below.

Health

Mulltidisciplinary

Legal

Surveys/Tests/Inventories/Questionaires 

You should also use subject headings to create a more powerful search. A subject heading is a word or phrase assigned to a topic. An item is tagged with the subject heading to describe what the item is about. 

For example, pressure injury, pressure wound, pressure sore, and pressure ulcer are all terms used interchangeably. A subject heading designates one term or phrase to describe this topic.

The collections of subject headings you will use in health sciences are

• CINAHL Subject Headings --used in CINAHL
• Medical Subject Headings or MeSH --used in PubMed and other medical databases
• Library of Congress Subject Headings or LCSH -- used in the library catalog 

Using a combination of subject headings and keywords makes your search query more powerful.

The resources linked below demonstrate using subject headings in CINAHL and PubMed.

Some helpful MeSH Terms are:

• Public Health Administration
• Organization & Administration
• Social Determinants of Health
• Primary Prevention
• Program Evaluation
• Environmental Medicine
• Health Education
• Health Promotion

MeSH Subheadings

MeSH Subheadings are qualifiers that can be attached to MeSH Terms. They are used to describe an aspect of a MeSH Term. Some helpful subheadings are:

• epidemiology
• prevention & control
• organization & administration
• legislation & jurisprudence
• standards
• statistics & numerical data

Note: Subject headings can also be problematic as these terms do not change very often. Subject terms are often biased, especially when describing people. It is possible that an item may be tagged with a subject term that is antiquated. Librarians work to get these terms updated with the authorizing body but it takes a lot of time and effort so the change is not as fast as we would like. 

The Cullom-Davis Library at Bradley University provides access to full-text articles. Do not pay for access to articles. There are a few ways to get the full text.

1. Look for the "full-text" or PDF link in the database. 

2. Use the "Get it @ BU" or "Access Options" link to view options on how to access the full text. You will be automatically directed to 1 of 3 options:

1. Full text is available in another database (you'll be directed to immediate access)
2. "Get it Now"- submit a request for the article, and within a few hours, you will receive the PDF file of the article via email.
3. "InterLibrary Loan" or ILLiad- submit the request, and you are notified by email when you can access the full text in the ILLiad system, or you receive an email with the file of the article. This usually takes a few days. (How do I get an article through interlibrary loan?)

Use all options to access the full text you need for your project/assignment. There is no additional cost to use these services. 

Search tips

Before requesting an item through interlibrary loan, do a quick Google search to determine if there is an open-access version. 

Add the LibKey Nomad browser extension to your computer. The extension creates a quick way to access the literature you discover on the web by connecting you to library resources and services. It also adds special enhancements to PubMed, Wikipedia, and other websites and databases. 

Use the customized for Bradley PubMed link for the "Get it @ BU" links to display. 

Use the customized Bradley Google Scholar for the "Get it @ BU" links to display.