Public Health Resources

Tools and resources relevant to the Public Health discipline. 

For specific guides to public health programs, targeted population groups, and certificates check out our Research Guides.

Books and Journals

  • Use Library Search to find library eBooks and print options
  • Use eJournals A-Z to browse for specific online journals available at Emory

Recommended Background Information Sources

Locate background information on public health related topics such as disease etiology, toxicology, and country reports.

Health Conditions and Health Policies

  • AccessScience: Source of reference for major scientific disciplines. Useful to identify and locate primary research material, videos, and teaching material.
  • Eldis: Global development information on international development issues, policy, and research.
  • Factiva: A collection of publications and websites in a variety of languages.
  • AccessMedicine: Books, case files, drug information, and videos. Includes Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine.

Chemistry and Toxicology

International Facts

  • EIU Country Reports: The Economist Intelligence Unit provides socio-economic information on over 150 countries.
  • Europa World Plus: An online reference source featuring political and economic information on more than 250 countries.
  • GIDEON: The Global Infectious Disease and Epidemiology Network is a global infectious disease knowledge management tool.
  • The World Bank Country Information: Political, social, and economic snapshots of various countries provided by the World Bank.

Searching for Peer-Reviewed Literature

  • CAB Direct: International coverage of communicable diseases (including HIV/AIDS), tropical and parasitic diseases, human nutrition, community and public health, and medicinal and poisonous plants.
  • EMBASE: Access international biomedical literature from 1947 to the present, fully indexed.
  • PsycINFO: Citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, and technical reports from professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines.
  • PubMed: Produced by the National Library of Medicine, this biomedical database includes over 30 million citations and dates back to 1946.
  • Scopus: Abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature including scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. Covers science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
  • Web of Science: Features articles from the top socio-economic and biomedical journals. Users can use the citation analysis feature to identify which organizations or researchers are the most productive.

Grey Literature

Examples of grey literature include reports, theses, dissertations, official documents, informal communication, research-in-progress, or clinical trials produced by government agencies, academic institutions, or business. Grey literature is not controlled by commercial or academic publishers and is not peer-reviewed.

  • CDC Stacks (N/A): Collection of CDC publications including guidelines and recommendations and MMWR reports.     
  • Clinicaltrials.gov (2000-present): ClinicalTrials.gov is a database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies conducted around the world.
  • Factiva (N/A): A collection of publications and websites in a variety of languages.
  • Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) (1948-present): The digital library of the World Health Organization (WHO)s published material and technical information. Its content is freely accessible and searchable in the six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian & Spanish).
  • National Technical Reports Literature (NTRL) (1964-present): Access to a large collection of historical and current authenticated government technical reports in a wide range of subject areas, including health care, environmental pollution, medicine, biology, and engineering.
  • Nexis Uni (1789-present): Access to news, business, medical, educational and legal sources. The sources include international, national, and regional newspapers; magazines; trade journals; newsletters; wire service reports; and transcripts of television and radio news programs.
  • ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (1861-present): The official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress.   
  • WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (N/A): The main aim of the WHO ICTRP is to facilitate the prospective registration of the WHO Trial Registration Data Set on all clinical trials, and the public accessibility of that information.

Organizing References

Visit our page to review recommended citation management software tools licensed by the university, open-source bibliographic tools, and reference style manuals.

Specialized Software

The Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library provides select computers with specialized quantitative, qualitative, and geospatial software. These packages are only licensed for use on designated library computers. Details of available software can be found at Software Available at the WHSC Library. Please visit the specialized software research guide for links for tutorials, training, and support materials.

Public Health Statistics

Provided below are a collection of links and resources to public health statistics. Many are freely available, though others may require reaching out the sponsor organization for study permissions. Additional statistics and data packages can be found on the WHSC Library Data Blog. 

    Disease Specific Health Statistics

    Chronic Disease Statistics

    Communicable Diseases