Epidemiology Discussion Paper Assignment
Your Epidemiology Discussion Paper begins with you finding a public health/epidemiology media article (newspaper, magazine, Instagram/Facebook/Twitter post) from this past year that you found interesting.
Once you find this, you need to trace the article or posting back to the published peer review finding. Take time to select your media piece since you will be writing a paper on the topic.
If you are having trouble finding something, you can try some of these sources:
- Science DailyLook for the links at the top that will let you browse by topic.
Tip:
What if I can't access New York Times articles?
If you find an article but are blocked from reading it, copy the article title and paste it in the search box at the Gale Academic OneFile database to see the full article.
Locating an Article Referenced in Popular Media
Here are three ways to get to a referenced article, each depending on your situation:
1. Online media often links to research articles. If you are on campus or have Lean Library set up, you will be guided to that article, or to Interlibrary Loan to request the article from another library (fast and free to you!).
2. If there is not a link, or the citation you have is from the end of the article (unlinked), or from a printout, check to see if USU Libraries has the journal, and then the issue of the journal, using the Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers search (also on the library's main page under Find). This also works better for much older articles.
3. Also, Google Scholar can be handy for finding articles when you only have a citation. Try putting the article title in Google Scholar and see if it leads you to the article. You can sync Google Scholar so that it recognizes what you can access through USU.
Note: Google Scholar can be used for research as well, but the other databases in this guide (PubMed and Scopus) vet what they include in their databases more carefully than Google Scholar, so you may have to do some extra work to make sure sources you find in Google Scholar are credible.
Locating Articles on Your Disease or Health Finding
After locating the peer-reviewed article that your media piece was based upon, you'll be writing a paper based on the topic of that paper. You will need to search databases to locate more research articles on your topic.
- PubMed
This link opens in a new window
A free resource from the US National Library of Medicine and a key resource for medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences.
Tip:
Medline vs. PubMed
Medline is a subset of the publicly available Pubmed database. Medline contains articles from a set of carefully reviewed publications.
- ScopusDatabase of peer-reviewed journal articles. Full text is not included, but Article Linker provides access to full-text articles when available.
Tip:
Need the PDF/full-text?
Use Article Linker to search for full-text across all databases. If the article isn't available, choose Request via ILLiad or use interlibrary services to request a copy from another library.
Tip:
The Merrill-Cazier Library at USU subscribes to Lean Library, a browser plug-in that alerts you when online content is available through the library while you are doing your research both on and off-campus. Lean Library works no matter how you do your research.
Background Information
As you do your research, you might find it helpful to get a basic understanding of a topic. News and other sources give information relevant to the story but it may not be a good overview. Research articles are very in-depth and assume some knowledge of the subject. Here are a few places to go for background information for public health topics.
- Oxford Reference OnlineSearch hundreds of e-books at once for introductory information on research topics. Oxford Reference also offers detailed searchable timelines.
- Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)Provides a system of health surveillance to monitor and prevent outbreak of diseases. CDC maintains national health statistics and supports research into disease and injury prevention.
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