Library Guides: Joint Medical Program Library Resources: Articles

Find the Full Article from a Citation

Shortcuts:

In database search results, click the Get it at UC icon Get it at UC button to check for an online copy of the article.

Search PubMed, Embase, UC Library Search, Google Scholar, or another appropriate article database by article title, then click Get it a UC.

Example citation for JMP orientation session:

Police Violence, Use of Force Policies, and Public Health. Obasogie, Osagie K; Newman, Zachary. American Journal of Law & Medicine, 2017. 43(2-3):279-295.

Database Exercises

Search Operators and Tips

Search Tips

Structuring Your Search

It may be useful to have a structure to help guide you when searching.

When you formulate a research question, consider these elements:

Phenomenon: What happened?
Subject or Population: Who did it?
Time: When did it happen?
Location: Where did it happen?
Cause or Motivation: Why did it happen?
Process: How did it happen?

Note: It is possible that not all of the above elements will be appropriate for your search topic.
This worksheet (docx) will take you through the process of formulating a search.

PICO is another popular way to structure a search.
PICO stands for:

Patient or Population;
Intervention;
Comparison or Control;
Outcome.

Worksheet: Developing an Efficient Search Strategy Using PICO (docx): A fillable form that provides a PICO example and prompts you to document synonyms and MeSH headings.

Embase has a PICO search form to guide you.

SPIDER is a search structure used in qualitative research. SPIDER stands for:

Sample;
Phenomenon of Interest;
Design;
Evaluation;
Research Type.

Once you have a search strategy, you can try the Polyglot Search tool, which helps to translate a PubMed search into the correct syntax for several other databases, including Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and more.

Core Public Health Article Databases

PubMed This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts in the fields of biomedicine and health, as well as portions of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering.

PubMed includes MEDLINE, PubMed Central (PMC), other biomedical and life science journals, and the NCBI Bookshelf. PubMed also provides links to other NCBI molecular biology resources, including nucleotide sequences, protein sequences, 3-D protein structure data, population study data sets, and assemblies of complete genomes in an integrated system.
Note: The link above goes to a specially configured version of PubMed for UC Berkeley users that will display the Get It at UC button for full text article access. To use the free public version, please click here.
Embase This link opens in a new window
International index including over 2,000 journals not in Medline, as well as conference abstracts. Broad biomedical scope with strong coverage in drug, pharmaceutical, and toxicological research, including economic evaluations and healthcare policy & management.
Indexes journals, including many not in Medline, from over 90 countries, and indexes conference abstracts from many conferences. Broad biomedical scope with strong coverage in drug, pharmaceutical, and toxicological research including economic evaluation.
Global Health This link opens in a new window
Indexes journals, books, reports, and more on the topics such as environmental and occupational health, food safety and hygiene, infectious diseases, medical microbiology, nutrition, public health, toxicology, and zoonoses. NOTE: UC Berkeley's access to Global Health will end in 2024.
Limited free full text is available for some hard-to-find journal articles, conference proceedings, reports, and research articles from smaller, society and non-English publishers. Note: The header says "CABI: CAB Abstracts and Global Health"
Agricultural & Environmental Science Database This link opens in a new window
Indexes journals, conference proceedings, reports, books, and government publications covering all areas of environmental science.
AES incorporates the formerly titled "Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management" database - which includes Environmental Impact Statements - plus the databases AGRICOLA (1970-current) and TOXLINE (1999-current).
CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
CINAHL is the primary database for nursing and allied health including topics such as addiction, aging, alternative/complementary medicine, biomedicine, mental health, psychology, and more. NOTE: UC Berkeley's access to CINAHL will end in 2024.
CINAHL Complete includes articles, books, audiovisuals, standards of care, and more. Indexing over 5,000 journals from 1937 forward, it features PreCINAHL citations and cited references starting with 1985. Over 730 journals are available full text.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Indexes leading journals in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences. Allows cited reference searching.
Includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1990-present), Book Citation Index (2005-present), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present).
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Indexes journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and book series in the sciences and more.
Contains over 50 million records with more than half the content originating from outside North America. Indexes over 21,000 journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and book series in the sciences, technology, medicine, arts, and humanities.

Selected Additional Databases

PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, dissertations, and technical reports. (Psychological Abstracts, Psychinfo) [1806 - current]
Indexes journals, conference proceedings, books, reports, and dissertations in psychology and enriched with literature from psychiatry, education, business, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, law, linguistics, and social work.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Indexes journals, books, dissertations, and reviews in the social sciences on sociological topics as well as selected anthropology, criminology, demography, law, social psychology, and urban development. [1952 - present]
Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window
A collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. [date varies]
Indexes journal articles, reviews, and bibliographies which provide evidence-based effects of health care, as well as a register of published economic evaluations of health care interventions and information on healthcare technology assessment from seven databases such as The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, and the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness.

Trip Database
Trip is a clinical search engine designed to allow users to quickly and easily find and use high-quality research evidence to support their practice and/or care.

PAIS International This link opens in a new window
Indexes books, journals, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, and web sources related to public policy, politics, economics, and social issues worldwide. (Public Affairs Information Service) [1915 - present]
Includes publications from over 120 countries. Some of the indexed materials are published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Archive covers English-language material only.
LegalTrac This link opens in a new window
Indexes major law reviews, legal newspapers, bar association journals, international legal journals. (Legal Trac) [1980 - present]
Also indexes law-related articles from hundreds of business and general interest titles.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Search across many disciplines and sources including articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Lists journal articles, books, preprints, and technical reports in many subject areas (though more specialized article databases may cover any given field more completely). Can be used with "Get it at UC" to access the full text of many articles.

The Guide to Public Health Databases has many more databases you might find useful.

Yet more databases

The UC Berkeley Library provides access to hundreds of databases in all subject areas. Check out the A-Z Databases Guide for a comprehensive list. Once at this page, you can narrow by subject or format type.

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Joint Medical Program Library Resources: Articles