Community Health & Epidemiology: Grey Literature

What is Grey Literature?

Grey literature are resources "Produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers." (Source). Since grey literature is not published in traditional places, it can often be hard to track down. However, grey literature is an extremely important resource in public health, and can include needs assessments, evidence reviews, policy reports, statistical analysis, and more. Grey literature does not undergo a peer-review process so all material should be appraised carefully.

Find Grey Literature

Best Bets

Effective Public Health Practice Project
Collection of high-quality evidence synthesis documents (including systematic reviews) prepared by experts.

Canadian Electronic Library: Canadian Public Documents Collection (CPDC)
A collection of monograph publications from Canadian public policy institutes, government agencies, advocacy groups, think-tanks, university research centres and other public interest groups

License Information: There are no restrictions to the number of simultaneous users. Access is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff of the University of Saskatchewan, and to "walk-in" users of the University of Saskatchewan Library for their occasional use, for educational, research, and non-commercial personal use. It is accessible in the library, on campus, and remotely. Systematic copying or downloading of electronic resource content is not permitted by Canadian and International Copyright law.

Canadian Health Research Collection
E-book publications from Canadian research institutes, government agencies and university centres working in the area of health and medical research. The organizations included in this collection are very active publishers of primary research in the field.
New York Academy of Medicine Grey Literature Report
A monthly compilation of new grey literature published in the field of public health and health services research. it is also possible to search their extensive catalogue of grey literature.
Public Health Grey Literature Sources (via OPHLA)
A comprehensive directory of locations to search for grey literature. Includes repositories, public health organizations, health services research centres, academic centres, and US and international resources.
Centre for Review and Dissemination (UK)
Abstracts of systematic reviews, assessment reviews, Cochrane reviews, international health technology assessments, and abstracts of works-in progress
Health Evidence

OAIster
A union catalog of more than 23 million open access digital resources from over 1,100 organizations, developed by the University of Michigan and harvested using OAI-PMH (the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting).

License Information: There are no restrictions to the number of simultaneous users. Access is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff of the University of Saskatchewan, and to "walk-in" users of the University of Saskatchewan Library for educational, research, and non-commercial personal use. It is accessible in the library, on campus, and remotely. Systematic copying or downloading of electronic resource content, including the downloading of a full issue, is not permitted by Canadian and International Copyright law.

Other Suggestions

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global
Search here for unpublished theses and dissertations from across North America. Many public health topics are covered.

License Information: There are no restrictions to the number of simultaneous users. Access is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff of the University of Saskatchewan, and to "walk-in" users of the University of Saskatchewan Library for educational, research, and non-commercial personal use. It is accessible in the library, on campus, and remotely. Systematic copying or downloading of electronic resource content is not permitted by Canadian and International Copyright law.

Google - Advanced Search
Try adding a website of interest in the Site or domain field (e.g. who.int, cdc.gov, gc.ca, etc.)

Google Scholar
Searching in different locations than Google, Google Scholar locates scholarly literature (articles, conference presentations, pre-prints, government reports, etc) in all subject areas.

License Information: This is an Open Access resource freely available on the Internet.

Government of Canada Publication Search

Search for Government of Canada documents here.

Canadian Public Policy Custom Search Engine

Public Health Search Engine

The Ontario Public Health Association has created a Google custom search engine which searches the websites of Canada's federal, provincial, and regional health authorities, public health agencies, and collaborating centres.