Biostatistics & Epidemiology

resources for graduate students in Biostatistics and Epidemiology

Recommended Databases for Biostatistics and Epidemiology

PubMed This link opens in a new window
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National Library of Medicine's comprehensive database of citations to medical journal articles, with links to UMass-subscribed full text, 1946-present. PubMed includes all MEDLINE content, plus content from additional journals and books in the life sciences.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
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Index to articles from peer-reviewed journals in all disciplines.Search by cited reference, topic, author, and more. Arts and Humanities covers 1975-present; Social Sciences 1900-present; and Science 1900-present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
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Published by the American Psychological Association (APA), PsycINFO is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed journal literature in psychology, behavioral science and mental health - 2,500 journal titles indexed - 2.8 million records - 1887 to present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
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Current Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature Complete includes indexing back to 1937 of over 5,000 journals as well as full-text of over 1,300 journals, 27 books, 134 evidence-based care sheets, 360 research instruments records, 169 quick lessons and more.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window
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Independent evidence-based information to inform healthcare decision making for medical caregivers and patients.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Scopus is an indexing and abstracting database of peer-reviewed scholarly content covering the sciences, social sciences, and arts & humanities, comparable to the Web of Science. Scopus allows for the discovery, tracking, and analysis of scholarship that includes: journal articles, conference proceedings, trade magazines, book series, books and book chapters, and patents.

Use Scopus to:
• Search for documents by topic, title, author, or institutional affiliation
• Perform citation searches and establish citation alerts
• Export citations to reference management systems
• View impact metrics for authors and journals
• Integrate Scopus content with ORCID profiles
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Finding Full Text & Interlibrary Loan

When you find an article you want, you can click on the UMass search button to get the full text.

The UMass search button connects to a tool that will find the full text online if it is available in any of the databases UMass has access to.

It will also search the library catalog to see if the library has it in print.

If an article or book is unavailable at UMass Amherst, you can get it using our Interlibrary Loan service. There will be a link to Request this resource through Interlibrary Loan on the window that opens after you click the UMass search button.

Here's a screenshot as an example of you might see after clicking the UMass search button.

More about Interlibrary Loan

To log into Interlibrary Loan use your UMass NetID and password (same as what you use for SPIRE and Moodle or Blackboard).

The first time you use Interlibrary Loan, you will be prompted to fill out a profile form, so we know who you are and how to contact you when your item arrives.

NOTE: In the Delivery Preferences section of the profile form, you must choose a Loan Delivery Method and a Pickup Location. All article requests are delivered electronically, so these options do not apply to articles.

After completing the profile, you should then see a pre-populated article request form. Make sure all the required fields are completed (sometimes they don't all transfer to the form), then submit it and usually in 1-2 business days you'll get an email that your article has arrived! The email will include a link into the Interlibrary Loan system, where your article PDF will be available to print or download.

Is the journal Peer Reviewed?

Many of your assignments will require you to locate articles from Peer Reviewed journals. Some databases include an option to limit your search results to only articles from peer reviewed journal.

Other databases, like PubMed, do not. There are several ways you can find out if a journal is peer reviewed.

One of the easiest ways is to look the journal title up using the eJournals link on the UMass Amherst Libraries home page. Above the journal title, it will say peer reviewed if it is.
Or, you can look it up in the Ulrich's database (linked below). Peer reviewed (also called refereed) journals will have this symbol next to the title:

How to find out if a Journal is Peer Reviewed
Handout with step-by-step instructions on how to find out if a journal is Peer-Reviewed

Ulrich's Web This link opens in a new window
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Comprehensive index of periodicals types, published worldwide.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Places to find Public Health Data

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Data
CDC Data and Statistics
Data and statistics on a variety of topics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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)."
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 NLM
from 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."
Google Dataset Search
From 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."
HealthData.gov
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 Center for Health Statistics (CDC)
National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) Measures Registry
A 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."
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."
PMC Article Datasets
options for text-mining PubMedCentral articles
USDA FoodData Central
"FoodData Central is an integrated data system that provides expanded nutrient profile data and links to related agricultural and experimental research."
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."

ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the U.S. This link opens in a new window
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Statistics 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.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Proquest Statistical Insight This link opens in a new window
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References to statistical reports from federal, state and local governments, private organizations, and intergovernmental agencies, 1973-present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
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Maps illustrating Census data from 1790 to 2010, with recent community, religion, and carbon emissions data.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Tests and Measurements

Here are some places where you might find existing tests, surveys, instruments or other measurements to use or adapt for your research.

PsycTESTS This link opens in a new window
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Produced by the American Psychological Association, it provides access to thousands of actual test instruments.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print This link opens in a new window
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Comprehensive guide to over 3,000 contemporary testing instruments. MMY contains information essential for a complete evaluation of test products within diverse areas - psychology, education, business, and leadership. Coverage: 1938 to present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

NIH Toolbox
"Using advanced test development techniques, our goal is to promote measurement science and outcomes research as the building blocks to excellent healthcare."