InfoGuides: Office of Equity & Inclusion (OHA): Sample Topic Search

Sample Topic Search

Topic

Using a health equity/racial equity lens when doing policy, systems work

Search Strategies

Consider search terms

health equity/racial equity lens
- "health equity"
- "racial equity"
- "health equity" OR "health equity lens"
- "racial equity" OR "racial equity lens"
- "health disparities"
- health AND (racial OR ethnic OR socioeconomic OR gender OR "sexual orientation") AND (disparity OR disparities)
policy or systems work
- policy OR policies
- policy OR policies OR procedures OR guidelines
combined
- "health equity" AND policy
- ("health equity" OR "racial equity") AND policy
- health AND (racial OR ethnic OR socioeconomic OR gender OR "sexual orientation") AND (disparity OR disparities) AND (policy OR policies)

Consider types of sources and where to find them

articles = databases
books = library catalog
ebooks = library catalog and/or databases
reports, white papers, best practices, etc. = sometimes databases, very often online from governmental or organizational sites
data and statistics = databases and governmental or organizational sites

Recommended Resources

These are recommended databases to locate articles.

Scopus
1858 - Current
Multidisciplinary abstract and citation database of research literature including journals, proceedings, and quality web sources. Search over 15000 journals and 27 million references from more than 4000 publishers.
MEDLINE Complete
1840 - Current
MEDLINE Complete is the largest companion to the MEDLINE index and provides full text for over 2,500 medical journals, many available with no embargo allowing access to the most current information. This resource provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more.

This is a recommended database to locate ebooks.

O'Reilly
1980 - Current
Over 40,000 ebooks, audio books, videos, tutorials and conferences available. View online or download to mobile device. Broad based coverage of technology, business, management, and leadership topics featuring top publishers. Coverage includes exclusive online access to O'Reilly Media materials. (Formerly known as Safari.)

Governmental sources often provide reports, policies, guidelines, statistics, laws, and other information.

If you're not sure which government agency to start with, try the following recommended options for a broad search across all types of governmental entities. (These will usually be U.S.-based.)

USA.gov
"USA.gov searches only federal, state, and local government websites for the public. Its search box works like other search engines you're used to, but USA.gov only returns results from government web pages, most ending in .gov or .mil."
Sample search: "heath equity lens" AND policy
Google - Site Extension Search
Perform a search in Google using a site extension limiter, which limits results to only websites that use the corresponding site extension. Add the site extension limiter by typing site:[site extension] at the end of your search terms, where [site extension] is the site extension you want to use -- such as .gov, .org, etc.
Sample search: "health equity lens" AND policy site:.gov

Consider what types of sources nongovernmental and/or nonprofit organizations may provide.

For example:

Kaiser Foundation - Disparities in Health and Health Care: Five Key Questions and Answers (Issue Brief)
By Petry Ubri and Samantha Artiga (Aug. 12, 2016). "Disparities in health and health care in the United States have been a longstanding challenge resulting in some groups receiving less and lower quality health care than others and experiencing poorer health outcomes. This brief provides an introductory overview of health and health care disparities, including what disparities are and why they matter, the status of disparities today, and key efforts to address disparities, including provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and their impact on health coverage disparities."
Ontario Public Health Association - Position Statement on Applying a Health Equity Lens
"Whereas the mission of the Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA) is to provide leadership on issues affecting the public’s health and to strengthen the impact of people who are active in public and community health throughout Ontario, OPHA is committed to action around achieving health equity."