Fall is here, and so is flu season. The IU East Center for Health Promotion (CHP) is currently promoting “Flulapalooza,” encouraging students, staff and faculty to get flu vaccinations. The CHP provides safe and convenient access for flu vaccinations. While it is generally agreed upon that the flu vaccine is good for you and can help prevent the spread of the virus, vaccines in general are a controversial topic and there can be misinformation spread if one does not use reliable sources. Here at the IU East Campus Library we have information resources that can help you navigate health related topics from various points of views.

The Library subscribes to a database provided by Gale, the Health and Wellness Resource Center. You can browse by topics or narrow your search by viewing one of their four main categories: Disease and Conditions; Drugs; Diagnostics and Tests; Therapies, Treatments, and Surgeries. The simple search box at the top center of the homepage is a good place to start if you’re not sure where to begin.

Health & Medical Complete and Health & Medicine are databases provided through ProQuest and both provide reliable and comprehensive coverage on a broad range of health-related topics. While they are very similar and have some overlapping content, they do have some differences that are important to point out.

Health & Medical Complete focuses a bit more on biomedical and clinical topics and covers subject areas like communicable diseases, pharmacology, immunology, and parasitology. If you’re looking for clinical research, this database will be useful.

Health & Medicine is actually the compilation of several ProQuest databases, including Health & Medical Complete. Health & Medicine searches through a total of 14 health related databases, like Family Health Database, GenderWatch, Nursing & Allied Health, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, Psychology Database, and more to provide diverse and comprehensive search results. If you are not sure where to start, this is a good database to begin with.

From EBSCO, we have Health Source: Consumer Edition and Health Source Nursing/Academic Edition. Both are useful databases, but they serve two different audiences: general public and academic. As a student and a researcher, both can be relevant to your research in different ways.

Health Source: Consumer Edition provides access to nearly 80 full-text consumer health magazines on topics ranging from sports medicine, food and nutrition, general health, and childcare. While this could provide you good background information in a lot of areas, these resources may not be considered peer-reviewed or scholarly in some context, so take that in consideration when researching for a class paper.

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition provides access to nearly 550 full-text scholarly medical journals. So, if you are looking for peer-reviewed articles, it would make sense to use this database over Health Source: Consumer Edition.

Two additional databases that include more information on the social issues and controversies surrounding health topics like vaccinations, medical marijuana, abortion, Autism, junk food, etc., are Opposing Viewpoints and CQ Researcher.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context covers current social issues and provides informed and differing perspectives on each topic in order for researchers to develop their own conclusions on polarizing issues. Opposing Viewpoints provides a variety of resources from academic journal articles, statistics, videos, audio, primary sources, and news accounts.

CQ Researcher often provides a single report on an issue, rather than a variety of sources like Opposing Viewpoints. It isn’t the most current, as most reports cover up to 2015, but it does provide an in-depth look on many different topics and can be a good starting point when beginning your research.

So, whether you are researching the clinical or medical side to a health related topic or focusing on the social and cultural viewpoints, the databases listed above are all valuable resources to access during your research. All of these databases are listed in the A-Z List on the library homepage, and you can also find them in the Nursing Subject guide which includes other health related databases we subscribe to at Indiana University East Campus Library.

If you need any assistance with accessing these databases or with researching a topic, you are welcome to Ask Us! iueref@iue.edu

If you still need your flu shot, Flulapalooza is still happening! Check out the dates and times here.