PUBHLTH 494CI Public Health Sciences Capstone
Resources for the Capstone project
Health Sciences Librarian
Ellen Lutz
she/her
Contact:
Science & Engineering Library
Room A273
Lederle Graduate Research Center Lowrise
740 N Pleasant St
Room A273
Lederle Graduate Research Center Lowrise
740 N Pleasant St
413-545-6690
Background Sources
For your project, you need to get find background information on your public health issue. Below are some reliable sources you can use that will help you explain the Problem and the Etiology of your issue.
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Encyclopedias in the LibraryUMass Amherst Libraries has several different encyclopedias that give brief overviews on various topics.
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)The CDC Publishes reports and data online about various health issues.
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National Institutes of Health (NIH)The NIH also provides reports about health issues.
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World Health Organization (WHO)Includes health-related statistics for almost 200 countries
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Healthy People"Healthy People 2030 sets data-driven national objectives to improve health and well-being over the next decade."
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CRS Reports This link opens in a new windowCongressional Research Service reports are compiled by the Library of Congress for members of the Senate and House of Representatives on various issues.
Uncheck all but CRS reports when doing your search.
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Annual ReviewsHome page for over 50 journals on topics in Biomedical/Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences
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Mass.gov Dept of Public HealthLinks to Massachusetts initiatives, policies, statistics, reports
If you are selecting a community in another state, try an internet search for that state and department of public health
Places to find Public Health Data
NOTE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders issued in early 2025, most of the U.S. government agency websites listed below have removed or will be removing data on a wide range of health issues, focusing on those that look at disparities based on race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. There are many initiatives to protect these data and continue to make them accessible. The first link below is to Data Lumos, one of the sources that has lots of health-related data.
If you need help finding data, please don't hesitate to contact me!
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DataLumosDataLumos is an ICPSR archive for valuable government data resources. ICPSR has a long commitment to safekeeping and disseminating US government and other social science data. DataLumos accepts deposits of public data resources from the community and recommendations of public data resources that ICPSR itself might add to DataLumos.
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CDC Data and StatisticsData and statistics on a variety of topics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Child & Family Data Archive"Launched in 2019, the Child and Family Data Archive (CFData) preserves and disseminates data on topics related to young children, their families and communities, and the programs that serve them. CFData holds hundreds of datasets and accompanying documentation for secondary data analysis on important issues of policy and practice relevance, including data previously housed with Child Care and Early Education Research Connections (CCEERC)."
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Data.gov"The home of the U.S. Government’s open data.
Here you will find data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, and more." -
Dataset Catalog at NLMfrom the website: "The Dataset Catalog is a catalog of biomedical datasets from various repositories for users to search, discover, retrieve, and connect with datasets to accelerate scientific research. This beta version aims to collect user feedback to inform future product development."
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Google Dataset SearchFrom their About page: "Dataset Search enables users to find datasets stored across the Web through a simple keyword search. The tool surfaces information about datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the Web, making these datasets universally accessible and useful."
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ICPSR Data"An international consortium of more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community.
ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields." -
National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) Measures RegistryA collaboration among CDC, NIH, USDA, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The registry "is a searchable database of diet and physical activity measures relevant to childhood obesity research. Its purpose is to standardize use of common measures and research methods across childhood obesity research at the individual, community, and population levels."
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National Institute of Child Health and Human Development DASH (Data and Specimen Hub)"The NICHD Data and Specimen Hub (DASH) is a centralized resource that allows researchers to share and access de-identified data from studies funded by NICHD. DASH also serves as a portal for requesting biospecimens from selected DASH studies."
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PMC Article Datasetsoptions for text-mining PubMedCentral articles
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USDA FoodData Central"FoodData Central is an integrated data system that provides expanded nutrient profile data and links to related agricultural and experimental research."
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The World Bank Health Nutrition and Population Statistics"Health Nutrition and Population Statistics database provides key health, nutrition and population statistics gathered from a variety of international and national sources. Themes include global surgery, health financing, HIV/AIDS, immunization, infectious diseases, medical resources and usage, noncommunicable diseases, nutrition, population dynamics, reproductive health, universal health coverage, and water and sanitation."
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ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the U.S. This link opens in a new windowStatistics from U.S. agencies on population, society, trade, the government, and much more, 2013-present. This for-profit version continues Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1878-2012.
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Proquest Statistical Insight This link opens in a new windowReferences to statistical reports from federal, state and local governments, private organizations, and intergovernmental agencies, 1973-present.
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Social Explorer This link opens in a new windowMaps illustrating Census data from 1790 to 2010, with recent community, religion, and carbon emissions data.
