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Ministry of Health

Health and Human Services Library

Bibliographic Databases on the Internet

The following bibliographic databases are available free. These resources provide citations and abstracts of journal and report literature in specific disciplines.

  • ADOLEC - ADOLEC (Literature on Adolescence Health) is a database that contains bibliographic references of the international literature from the health area of adolescents and young adults. It contains articles from the most relevant journals in the health area, and other documents such as: theses, books, chapters of books, annals of congresses or conferences, technical and scientific reports and governmental publications. ADOLEC bibliographic references are extracted from MEDLINE and LILACS databases.

  • Adverse Reaction Database - Health Canada - The Canada Vigilance Online Database allows you to access information reported to Health Canada about suspected adverse reactions to drugs and health products, such as prescription and non-prescription medication, natural health products and radiopharmaceuticals.

  • AGRICOLA - AGRICultural OnLine Access from the (US) National Agricultural Library; indexes journal articles, book chapters, short reports, and reprints, as well as books and other materials held by the NAL. Includes coverage of nutrition and food safety.

  • Alcohol Studies Database - Rutgers University Libraries - The database contains over 80,000 citations for journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and audio-visual materials.

  • American Journal of Health Promotion's DataBase of health promotion studies - Hundreds of the most significant peer-reviewed studies addressing important research questions in the health promotion field are indexed in this searchable database for reader convenience. Each search will produce a set of articles with complete references, brief summaries of the original articles and pertinent details such as sample size and study duration.

  • BIOSAFETY - this ICGEB (International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology) database is a bibliographic collection of studies on biosafety and risk assessment in biotechnology relating to the environmental release of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The database is updated monthly and contains scientific articles (full reference + abstract) published in international scientific journals from 1990 onwards.

  • British Columbia Atlas of Wellness - This atlas defines, measures, and maps wellness for the Province of British Columbia. Using mostly readily available data, the atlas aims to focus on what is right and well with respect to health, instead of taking the traditional approach of emphasizing what is sick and wrong.

  • CAM on PubMed - The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) have partnered to create CAM on PubMed, a subset of NLM's PubMed. Your literature search will be automatically limited to the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) subset of PubMed.

  • Campbell Collaboration - Modelled on the Cochrane Collaboration in the health sciences, the Campbell Collaboration is an independent, international, non-profit organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about the effects of interventions in the social, behavioral and educational arenas. Prepares, maintains and disseminates systematic reviews of existing social science evidence, focusing on policies and practices in the fields of education, social welfare, and crime and justice.

  • Cancer Literature in PubMed - formerly CANCERLIT, a bibliographic database with more than 1.8 million citations and abstracts from over 4,000 sources including biomedical journals, proceedings, books, reports and theses. While CancerLit was retired in 2003, you can still search for cancer-related research in PubMed (1951 - present).

  • Child Abuse and Neglect (National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information) - see Child Welfare Information Gateway

  • Child Welfare Information Gateway- Formerly the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, Child Welfare Information Gateway provides access to information and resources to help protect children and strengthen families. A service of the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Try their Publication Search.

  • Child Welfare League of America: National Data Analysis System (NDAS) is the most comprehensive collection of child welfare data available.

  • CIRRIE Database of International Rehabilitation Research - University of Buffalo, NY. The CIRRIE database currently contains almost 90,000 citations of international rehabilitation research published between 1990 and the present.

  • ClinicalTrials.gov - developed by the National Institutes of Health (US), through the National Library of Medicine to provide patients, family members and members of the public current information about clinical research studies.

  • COCE COD (Co-Occurring Disorders) Bibliography - The Co-Occurring Center for Excellence (SAMHSA) has assembled and organized the growing literature on the topic of co-occurring disorders. The bibliography contains approximately 3, 933 COD-related citations from 2002-2007.

  • CONNECT - CONNECT is a union catalogue that you can use search the library collections of the four largest HIV/AIDS libraries in Canada. That's a combined collection of over 45 000 books, videos, DVDs, journal articles, and other resources on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and legal/ethical issues, among many other topics.

  • CYFERnet - Child Youth and Families Education Research Network brings together the best children, youth and family resources of all the public land-grant universities in the United States.

  • DESASTRES - database produced by the Disasters Documentation Center, of the PAHO Program of Emergency Preparedness and Coordination Help for Cases of Disasters. It contains bibliographic references from resulting analysis of publications from PAHO or other United Nations agencies, books or chapters of books, unconventional literature such as technical reports, congress presentations, theses, emergency plans etc, and scientific articles extracted from specialized journals.

  • Drug Product Database - Health Canada - The DPD contains product specific information on drugs approved for use in Canada. The database is managed by Health Canada and includes human pharmaceutical and biological drugs, veterinary drugs and disinfectant products. It contains approximately 23,000 products which companies have notified Health Canada as being marketed.

  • EbPMetabase Evidence-based Practices Metabase - The Evaluation Center@HSRI, Human Services Research Institute, Cambridge MA - The Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Program supports the rigorous scientific evaluation of behavioral health interventions, and the dissemination and implementation of interventions that have strong evidence of effectiveness.

  • ERIC - the Educational Resources Information Center's database of more than 950,000 abstracts of documents and journal articles on education research and practice; the world's largest source of education information. Includes coverage of school health issues, health promotion and education, adult education, testing and evaluation tools, early childhood education, and child/family social issues.

  • ETOH - (U.S.) National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and (NIAAA)'s Alcohol and Alcohol Problems Science Database, the most comprehensive online resource covering all aspects of alcohol abuse and alcoholism.

  • GARD - The Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center (GARD) was created in 2002 by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the Office of Rare Diseases Research (ORDR) - two agencies at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - to help people find useful information about genetic and rare diseases. GARD provides timely access to experienced information specialists who can furnish current and accurate information - in both English and Spanish - about genetic and rare diseases.

  • Global Childnet - Compiles world-wide child health information in a series of databases.

  • Health-Evidence.ca - A web site designed to provide quality research evidence to public health decision makers by searching, screening, and rating the systematic review evidence and compiling it in a free, searchable online registry.

  • Homelessness Resource Center Library - SAMHSA - The Homelessness Resource Center is an interactive community of providers, consumers, policymakers, researchers, and public agencies at federal, state, and local levels. Its mandate is to share state-of-the art knowledge and promising practices to prevent and end homelessness through: training and technical assistance, publications and materials, on-line learning opportunities, networking and collaboration.

  • International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements (IBIDS) - Launched by the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) at the National Institutes of Health on Jan. 6, 1999, the purpose of this database is to assist researchers, physicians, and the general public in locating scientific literature on dietary supplements. IBIDS contains published, peer-reviewed, international, scientific literature on dietary supplements that draws upon numerous medical and scientific databases already in existence. The first phase of IBIDS included published, peer-reviewed, international, scientific literature on dietary supplements from 1985 to the present. Phase II will add monographs, serials, and reports to IBIDS as well as peer-reviewed literature from the previous decade.

  • Intute: Social Sciences - a UK-based social sciences database of web resources for education and research, evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists. Incorporates Altis and SOSIG sites.

  • ISIHighlyCited Database - Thomson Scientific Publishing - This freely accessible Web site gives research professionals working in a variety of occupations an invaluable tool to identify individuals, departments and laboratories that have made fundamental contributions to the advancement of science and technology in recent decades.

  • Legacy Tobacco Documents Library - University of California – San Francisco. - The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL) contains more than 10 million documents (50+ million pages) created by major tobacco companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and scientific research activities. The Pollay Advertising Collection was added in June 20009. ( Richard W. Pollay was Curator of the History of Advertising Archives, University of British Columbia).

  • McGill Library Global Health Resource Guide - a wiki created to promote collaboration between all McGill people working in the field of global health.

  • MEDLINE - see PubMed

  • National Adoption Information Clearhouse - see Child Welfare Information Gateway

  • National Criminal Justice Reference Service - U.S. Dept. of Justice. - The NCJRS Abstracts Database contains summaries of the more than 200,000 criminal justice, juvenile justice, and substance abuse resources housed in the NCJRS Library collection.

  • National Guideline Clearinghouse - a comprehensive database of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and related documents. Its mission is to provide physicians, nurses, and other health professionals, health care providers, health plans, integrated delivery systems, purchasers and others an accessible mechanism for obtaining objective, detailed information on clinical practice guidelines and to further their dissemination, implementation and use.

  • NREPP (National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices) - NREPP is a searchable database of interventions for the prevention and treatment of mental and substance use disorders. SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) has developed this resource to help people, agencies, and organizations implement programs and practices in their communities.

  • Native Health Database - “The Native Health Database contain bibliographic information and abstracts of health-related articles, reports, surveys, and other resource documents pertaining to the health and health care of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Nations. The databases provide information for the benefit, use, and education of organizations and individuals with an interest in health-related issues, programs, and initiatives regarding North American indigenous peoples.”

  • NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED) - contains over 7000 abstracts of quality assessed economic evaluations. The database aims to assist decision-makers by systematically identifying and describing economic evaluations, appraising their quality and highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses.

  • Online Mendelian Inheritance In Man - Search for information on human genetic disorders in OMIM, a catalog of human genes and genetic disorders.

  • OT Seeker - OTseeker is a database that contains abstracts of systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials relevant to occupational therapy. Trials have been critically appraised and rated to assist you to evaluate their validity and interpretability. These ratings will help you to judge the quality and usefulness of trials for informing clinical interventions. In one database, OTseeker provides you with fast and easy access to trials from a wide range of sources.

  • PEDro - PEDro is the Physiotherapy Evidence Database. It has been developed to give rapid access to bibliographic details and abstracts of randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy.

  • PILOTS Database: An Electronic Index to the Traumatic Stress Literature - The PILOTS database is an electronic index to the worldwide literature on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health consequences of exposure to traumatic events. It is produced at the headquarters of the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in White River Junction, Vermont. Linked from the PTSD Information Center web site.

  • POPLINE® (POPulation information onLINE) - The world's largest database on reproductive health, containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues.

  • Practice Environments and Patient Safety - The CNA Patient Safety Resource Guide is a web based, fully searchable database containing references related to all aspects of patient safety.

  • Population Index - Population Index, published since 1935, is the primary reference tool to the world's population literature. It presents an annotated bibliography of published books, journal articles, working papers, and other material on population topics; contains over 46,000 abstracts of demographic literature published in Population Index in the period 1986-2000.

  • Project CORK Catalog - The CORK file is an index to materials owned by the Project Cork Resource Center at Dartmouth College in the U.S. The materials (books, book-chapters, journal-articles, etc.) found here are about alcoholism and substance abuse. To obtain materials, send your requests to the HHS Library at HLTH.Library@gov.bc.ca.

  • PubMed - The (U.S.) National Library of Medicine's free MEDLINE database, the premier medical database of articles from 3500+ medical and health sciences journals. [PubMed Help and PubMed Training Manuals]
    List of PubMed journals with some free full-text

  • REPIDISCA - database that contains bibliographic references to the Sanitary Engineering and Environmental Sciences literature, coordinated by CEPIS - Pan American Center for Sanitary Engineering and Environmental Sciences. From 1994 on it incorporated the registers of the ECO database - related to Human Ecology and Health. It includes the literature published in the Latin America and Caribbean countries.

  • SafetyLit - Center for Injury Prevention Policy and Practice, San Diego State University - SafetyLit includes summaries of scholarly reports and journal articles about injury occurrence and risk factors. Articles are considered relevant if they concern any of the pre-event or event elements of the Haddon Matrix; the epidemiology of injury; or the financial, personal, or societal costs or consequences of the any injury or risk factor. SafetyLit also includes reports on other topics that may help a reader to make decisions about research or prevention strategies and priorities.

  • Scitable - A free science library and personal learning tool which concentrates on genetics, the study of evolution, variation, and the rich complexity of living organisms. As you cultivate your understanding of modern genetics on Scitable, you will explore not only what we know about genetics and the ways it impacts our society, but also the data and evidence that supports our knowledge.

  • Smoking and Health Resource Library - maintained by the U.S. Office on Smoking and Health, this database contains 56,000+ abstracts of journal articles, books and book chapters, dissertations, reports, conference proceedings and conference papers, government documents, policy or legal documents, editorials, letters, and comments on articles. Items in the database focus on the scientific, medical, technical, policy, behavioral, legal, and historical literature related to smoking and tobacco use and its effect on health.

  • Substance Information Link (SILINK) Library - managed by the Centre for Addictions Research of BC at the University of Victoria, this is a collection of resources on the harms related to substance use and addictions. Available is an interface to review the most recent additions, find practical tools within selected toolkits, and access drug information collections to find information on specific drugs.

  • Systematic Reviews for Management and Policy Making (PPD/CCNC database) - Produced by McMaster University’s Program in Policy Decision-Making (PPD), in partnership with the Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre (CCNC). Contains 800+ systematic reviews about governance, financial and delivery arrangements within health systems. Includes links to abstracts, user-friendly summaries and full-text reports whenever possible.

  • Trip Database – Turning Research into Practice - The aims of the TRIP Database have remained the same since 1997 - allow health professionals to easily find the highest-quality material available on the web - to help support evidence based practice. The evolution of the TRIP Database has been guided by the desire to answer real clinical questions using the principles of evidence based medicine.

  • TOXNET - National Library of Medicine databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, and related areas

  • Violit (Violence Literature Database) - University of Colorado at Boulder - A violence-related research literature database with abstracts. Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado at Boulder.

  • WorldCat - WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.

Ministry of Health, Ministry of Children and Family Development staff and other eligible B.C. public health and child welfare clients: Please contact the Library to learn how to access subscription-based databases like Social Work Abstracts Plus and CINAHL, along with other Health and Human Services Library services on the Web.