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CHI Home : Spanish Language Resources | Multilingual Health Information | Sample Searches

Consumer Health Information

A Workshop for Librarians Providing Health Information to the Public

Sample Searches

1. A young Hispanic girl interprets her grandmother's request for Medicare information. She also explains that her grandmother reads Spanish, but cannot read English.
Go to MEDLINEplus http://medlineplus.gov
Click on the link Health Topics
Click on the letter "H" scroll down and select Health Insurance
Click on Espaņol/Spanish and select the link to Publicaciones Medicare en Espaņol http://www.medicare.gov/Spanish/Overview.asp
ALSO - find information for mammography and insect bites in Spanish.

2. A mother, new to your community, is looking for a pediatrician and an ophthalmologist.
Go to MEDLINEplus Physicians and Other Health Professionals http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/directories.html
Click on the link AMA Physician Select: Online Doctor Finder http://www.ama-assn.org/aps/amahg.htm
ALSO - use physician select to find information on internal medicine and cardiology physicians in your area. Can you locate a chiropractor?

3. A patron needs information on the latest studies, or ongoing research on smoking. He also needs the names and contact information of clinics or hospitals, which are participating in the studies.
Go to ClinicalTrials.gov http://clinicaltrials.gov/
ALSO - find information for studies or clinical trials on growth disorders and peptic ulcer.

4. An elderly patron is looking for comparison information for nursing homes within your zip code. He is interested in finding the names and contact information for each nursing home, general information about the nursing homes, the percentage of residents with behavior problems cared for in each home, and the results of the nursing homes' inspections.
Go to MEDLINEplus Hospitals and Other Health Facilities http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/directories.html
Click on the link HCFA - Nursing Home Compare http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/Home.asp
ALSO - locate names and contact information for nursing homes within your county.

5. You want to locate information in consumer journals on asthma.
Go to PubMed http://pubmed.gov/ Input the search terms + AND jsubsetk
ALSO - locate information in consumer journals on hormone replacement therapy; locate information in consumer journals on health insurance.

6. A patron has asked you to help them locate information on herbal medicine.
Go to MEDLINEplus http://medlineplus.gov
Click on the link Health Topics
Click on the letter "A" scroll down and select Alternative Medicine.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/alternativemedicine.html
ALSO - locate information on acupuncture; locate information on vitamin and mineral supplements.

7. You have been asked to retrieve information on esofajeel reflux. You're having trouble locating information for this condition. Go to the MeSH Browser on the PubMed site at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/meshbrowser.cgi and put esofajeel reflux in the text box and search for this term. What are the results of your search? Try some of these other terms - kolesterol, hemorhoids, limfoma, lukemia, makular degeneration, Raynod's disease, conjunctive heart failure

8. A patron wants to know if there is a consumer health library within the state.
Go to MEDLINEplus Other Resources http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/otherresources.html
Click on the link Libraries http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/libraries.html or
Go to CAPHIS http://caphis.mlanet.org/directory/index.html

9. In PubMed http://pubmed.gov/ enter the term shoulder pain into the text box. Go to "Limits" (click on the word Limits) Select "Review" for Publication Types, English for Language, Human and 2 Years for Entrez Date. Run the search. Run searches for cat scratch disease, food allergy and domestic violence. With the above limits applied go to PubMed's Index to select terms and search for each of the following: down syndrome, bedwetting, alzheimer disease, eating disorder and Gulf War Syndrome.

10. Go to DIRLINE http://dirline.nlm.nih.gov/ and search the term pet; search heart; search sudden infant death.

11. Check out the registration information for Loansome Doc
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/loansome_doc.html fact sheet.
Locate a health science library serving consumers in your state and contact them to make interlibrary loan arrangements.
http://nnlm.gov/hip/.
What libraries are providing interlibrary loan or Loansome Doc services to consumers in your state?


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