Accessing Environmental Health Information

BUMC Resources

• MEDLINE
  • MEDLINE is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's database of indexed journal citations and abstracts now covering nearly 4,500 journals published in the United States and more than 70 other countries. Available for online searching since 1971, MEDLINE includes references to articles indexed from 1966 to the present. New citations are added weekly. All citations in MEDLINE are assigned MeSH® Terms and Publication Types from NLM's controlled vocabulary.
• PubMed
  • PubMed is a service of the National Library of Medicine and provides access to over 12 million MEDLINE & TOXLINE citations back to the mid-1960's and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources. Get started with the PubMed Overview Video Tutorial offered by the library.
• The Web of Science
  • Web of Science allows you to access ISI citation databases, which are multidisciplinary databases of bibliographic information gathered from thousands of scholarly journals. Using this web-based product, you can search for records within the citation databases by: topic, author, source title, author address, cited author, cited work, and cited year.
• Important journals in the field of Environmental Health include the following:
  • Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP),
  • Environmental Health,
  • Environmental Science & Technology,
  • Epidemiology, and
  • Toxicological Sciences.

Open Access Resources

• MedlinePlus
  • MedlinePlus contains up-to-date, quality health care information from the world's largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. MedlinePlus is for anyone with a medical question. Both health professionals and consumers can depend on it for accurate and current medical information.
• CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports
  • The MMWR provides weekly public health updates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
• National Cancer Institute
  • The National Cancer Institute coordinates the National Cancer Program, which conducts and supports research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs with respect   to the cause, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cancer, rehabilitation from cancer, and the continuing care of cancer patients and the families of cancer patients.
• Above the Fold
  • Environmental Health Sciences compiles and publishes environmental health news on a daily basis available at Above the Fold. The New York Times often contains stories of interest as well. Don't forget to always consider the source. Newspaper and mass-media publications almost always contain bias (this doesn't mean that government publications don't often have bias too).
• CDC Wonder
  • CDC Wonder provides health data for U.S. populations.
• Envirofacts Data Warehouse
  • Envirofacts provides access to environmental media data and is provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
• Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH)
  • MDPH is a governmental agency with a focus on promoting healthy people, healthy families, healthy communities and healthy environments through compassionate care, education and prevention.
• Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP)
  • MassDEP is the state agency responsible for ensuring clean air and water, the safe management of toxics and hazards, the recycling of solid and hazardous wastes, the timely cleanup of hazardous waste sites and spills, and the preservation of wetlands and coastal resources.
• TOXNET
  • The Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program's website includes databases relevant to toxicology, environmental health, and chemistry.
• US Department of Agriculture's (USDA)
  • USDA provides information on a variety of interesting issues including agricultural practices, food safety, organic practices, and hot topics such as foot and mouth disease and BSE ("mad cow disease").
• US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
  • FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products, medical devices, our nation's food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, and products that give off radiation.
• ProMED-mail
  • The International Society for Infectious Disease website, ProMED-mail, provides day-by-day information on infectious disease outbreaks as well as some news on environmental contamination.
• World Health Organization (WHO)
  • WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
• Environmental Defense Fund
  • Among many environmental NGOs, Environmental Defense Fund is a national nonprofit that has linked science, economics and law to create innovative, equitable and cost-effective solutions to environmental problems.

Reference Example

Watkins DJ, McClean MD, Fraser AJ, Weinberg J, Stapleton HM, Sjödin A, Webster TF. Impact of dust from multiple microenvironments and diet on PentaBDE body burden. (2012). Environ Sci Technol. 46:1192-1200. doi: 10.1021/es203314e

When you cite the Watkins et al. reference in the text, use the following nomenclature:

• Blah, blah, blah (Watkins et al, 2012).
• Repeat each time, no ibids, please.