Population and Public Health
Core Databases
- MEDLINE (Ovid)Same content as PubMed but with additional search features. See UBC Library's tutorials or your librarian to learn more about how best to search.
- EMBASE (Ovid)International (but European-focused) biomedical database with strengths in drug-related and rehabilitation sciences subjects.
- CINAHL - Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health LiteratureKey database in nursing and allied health.
- PsycInfo (includes full text from PsycArticles)Covers psychology and the psychological aspects of various other disciplines. Contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports, as well as citations to dissertations.
- Web of Science Core CollectionBroad coverage of science and social sciences literature.
- ScopusSearch citations and abstracts for journal articles, conference proceedings, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Can also be used for cited reference searches, citation analysis of research and searching by affiliation.
- CABI Digital LibraryArticles, ebooks, and data sheets on agriculture, animal health, crop protection, forestry, global health, human nutrition, horticulture, and natural resources management. Includes Cab Abstracts & Global Health databases.
- Climate Change and Human Health Literature PortalDatabase of journal articles and grey literature created by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
- HealthcareLCACollection of life cycle assessment studies and reports on healthcare products
Database Commands
Database |
Truncation |
Wildcard: 0 or 1 character |
Wildcard: Exactly 1 character |
Phrase |
Proximity |
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OVID databases
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* or $ or : Examples: pharm$ will find: pharmacy, pharmacist, pharmaceutical…. Child* will find: children, childbirth, child-centred, childhood… |
? Examples: flavo?r P?ediatric |
# Example: wom#n |
Quotation marks only needed if there's a word like "and," "or" or "use" in your phrase: Examples: “Sensitivity and Specificity” “Substance use disorder” |
adjn (adj=adjacent and "n" is the number of words)
Example: environment* adj3 health will find environment, environmental etc. within 3 words of health. |
* Note: truncation stops automatic mapping to MeSH |
* Note: there must be 4 characters before first wildcard. Wildcard stops automatic mapping to MeSH |
* Note: there must be 4 characters before first wildcard. Wildcard stops automatic mapping to MeSH |
“your phrase” Note: phrase searching stops automatic mapping to MeSH, and does not always find results |
"search terms"[Field:~n] Available for title and abstract only. Example: "nursing education"[Title/Abstract:~2] |
|
EBSCO databases
|
*
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# Examples: flavo#r P#ediatric |
? Example: wom?n |
“your phrase” |
Nn or Wn (N= Near, W= Within and "n" is the number of words) Example: |
|
* Web of Science allows left-sided truncation as well as right-sided. Example: *statin will find: atorvastatin, simvastatin, pravastatin… |
$ for exactly 0-1 characters * for 0-multiple characters
|
? |
“your phrase” |
NEAR/n You can specify n number of words; or if you just type NEAR, the default range is within 15 words. |
Scopus |
* Scopus automatically searches for plurals and applies stemming |
? Scopus automatically includes spelling variants |
? Scopus automatically includes spelling variants |
"your phrase" loose phrase - searches for words in same field (title, abstract, or keyword), but not necessarily as an exact phrase. {exact phrase} Use curly brackets to look only for exact phrase. Note that hyphens count - eg, {COVID 19} and {COVID-19} will find different results. Can't use truncation or wildcards with exact phrase searching. |
W/n (words in any order within n words of each other) PRE/n (looks for words only in the order they are entered) |
Proquest databases *note: consider changing the drop-down next to the search box to "NOFT" instead of "anywhere" when searching these databases |
* |
* for up to 5 characters in middle of word |
? | "your phrase" |
NEAR/n (if you don't specify n, default is 4) PRE/n (looks for words only in the order they are entered) |
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? |
"your phrase" Note that * and ? are ignored within quotes |
"word1 word2"~n ("n" is the number of words) |
Google Scholar
Google Scholar can be a useful resource for finding literature. It's great for finding grey literature such as government reports, dissertations, and research presented at conferences. Clicking the "Cited by" link for a particular article can be an excellent way to find related research on a topic. However, there are a few caveats about using Google Scholar:
- There's little to no quality control on the content in Google Scholar, so you may find results from predatory journals
- Searching works a bit differently - for instance, truncation (using the * at the end of a word) searching doesn't work, and sometimes using brackets in your search causes unusual results
- There are no subject terms or other filters you can use to focus your search
When using Google Scholar from off-campus, use the link below to enable access to UBC eLink. Also, please see the Grey Literature guide below for additional tips on using Google Scholar, and more sources and techniques for finding grey literature:
- Google ScholarWorld's largest academic search engine providing free searching to a full range of scholarly literature (ie. peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, pre-prints, abstracts, technical reports).
Database Searching Tutorials
- Last Updated: April 4, 2025