Travel Medicine

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Travel Medicine
http//www.lshtm.ac.uk/library/libmark.htmltravme
d
Online Resources 7th April 2006 Jo
Butler Information Services Librarian
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Whats available?

• Internet Sites provide access to reports,
  ebooks, papers, organisations, blogs, mailing
  lists etc etc
• Online Journals either online versions of print
  journals or online-only journals
• Online Databases provide access to journal
  articles, book chapters, conference papers,
  theses, reports etc

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Internet Sites

• There are countless internet sites providing free
  and valuable information for travel health. But
  how do you know
• Where to start? Which sites are reliable?
• Try looking at the librarys weblinks
  http//www.lshtm.ac.uk/library/libmark.html
• See also the Guide to Web-based Health Resources
  which is in the Travel Medicine section of the
  links page

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Internet Sites

• Use these sites to answer questions like
• Q1 What are the recommended vaccination
  requirements for visitors to Kenya?
• A Try the WHO site or the CDC Travellers Health
  site or NaTHNaC
• Q2 Where is there currently an epidemic of
  Chikungunya? How many cases have been reported so
  far?
• A Try any of the above sites or Pro-Med mail

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HINARI

• What does HINARI offer?
• Free or low cost access to 3000 major biomed
  social science journals, and to databases such as
  Cochrane
• Who is eligible?
• Local, not-for-profit institutions in countries
  with GNP per capita below 1000 have free access
• Local, not-for-profit institutions in countries
  with GNP per capita between 1000-3000 pay a fee
  of 1000 per year
• Eligible institutions include universities,
  research institutes, professional schools
  (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health,
  dentistry), teaching hospitals, government
  offices national medical libraries.
• Visit http//www.who.int/hinari/en/ for more
  information

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Online Journals

• Even if you are not a member of HINARI you can
  still access some free collections of high
  quality online journals.
• Go to the HINARI home page at http//www.who.int/h
  inari/en/ and click on the link to full-text
  journals, then browse through the Free Collection
  this includes
• BioMed Central Provides access to a selection
  of open-access journals published by BioMed
  Central. The journals cover a range of
  Biomedical topics
• Free Medical Journals This provides links to a
  good selection of freely available online medical
  journals

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Online Journals

• Use online journals to answer questions like
• Q Where can I read Prof A Nicolls editorial on
  proposed new international health regulations
  which was published in the BMJ in Feb 2005?
• A Go directly to the BMJ website or via the Free
  Medical Journals site listed above.

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Databases

• There are lots of useful databases available over
  the internet, many of which are free.
• What type of information do they have? Both
  published and unpublished grey literature
  including journal articles, clinical trials,
  systematic reviews, conference proceedings,
  technical reports, theses and government reports.
  
• Are they full-text? - Some databases contain the
  full text of papers whilst others just have an
  abstract.
• Which databases are available? - See the guide to
  Web-based Health Resources on the librarys
  website (under the Travel Medicine links)

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Databases - Cochrane Library

• Cochrane Library http//www.thecochranelibrary.co
  m Subscription based but free to UK NHS, UK
  universities, certain developed countries through
  other schemes and to developing countries through
  HINARI
• What does it provide? Its the main resource
  for evidence-based medicine and practice.
  Includes full-text systematic reviews, abstracts
  of reviews of effectiveness, the most
  comprehensive bibliography of published clinical
  trials, economic evaluations etc.

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Databases - Cochrane Library

• Search Tips
• Consider synonyms alternate spellings for your
  search terms and add these to your search e.g.
  traveler OR traveller
• Put speech marks around phrases e.g. jet lag
• Type your search terms in either upper or lower
  case but dont mix cases e.g. search for heart or
  search for HEART but not Heart
• See http//www.lshtm.ac.uk/library/help.html for
  a guide to searching Cochrane

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Databases - Cochrane Library

• Use Cochrane to answer evidence based queries
  like
• Q Is there any evidence that insecticide-treated
  bed nets prevent malaria?
• A Search for insecticide treated bed nets and
  malaria

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Databases PubMed

• PubMed Probably the best general health
  resource. Available free at http//www.ncbi.nlm.n
  ih.gov/entrez/
• What does it provide? PubMed indexes over 4,800
  journals from over 70 countries (although there
  is a Western bias). Also has a link to a number
  of online books and a link to PubMed Central, an
  archive of free online journals. It includes all
  the files from Medline as well as additional
  life-sciences material.
• Is it full-text? No abstracts are usually
  provided however there are often links to the
  full-text of free or open-access journal
  articles and HINARI members are able to access
  even more.

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Databases PubMed

• Search Tips
• Think of synonyms alternate spellings of your
  search terms and add these to your search e.g.
  travellers OR travelers
• Separate your search terms with AND OR NOT (type
  these in capital letters)
• If you use a mixture of AND OR NOT in your search
  put brackets around the ORs e.g. health AND
  (travellers OR travelers)
• For advanced searching use the MeSH thesaurus
• See http//www.lshtm.ac.uk/library/help.html for
  PubMed guides to doing both basic and advanced
  (MeSH) searches

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Databases PubMed

• Use PubMed to find papers on any biomed topic
  e.g.
• Q Are there any recent papers on deep vein
  thrombosis travel?
• A Search for deep vein thrombosis AND travel
• Q How well do travellers tend to adhere to their
  prescribed malaria chemoprophylactic regimens?
• A Search for (travelers OR travellers) AND
  (adhere or adherence) AND malaria AND
  (chemoprophylactic OR chemoprophylaxis)

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The End!

• Visit the LSHTM library webpages for
• Useful web links
• Guide to evaluating internet sites
• Details of free databases
• Guides to using these databases
• This presentation
• http//www.lshtm.ac.uk/library/
• Thank you