Community Health & Epidemiology: 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.

Best Bets

Customized Search Engines

1. Canadian Public Health Custom Google Search

A custom Google search engine which searches many Canadian public health sites.

2. see box on right side for Canadian Public Policy Custom Search

Search here for information from Canadian public policy organizations (for example, Fraser Institute, Pembina Institute, Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, Frontier Institute and over 200 more). This Google Custom Search Engine, created by a University of Saskatchewan librarian, searches only these 200+ sites

Clinical Practice Guidelines

Unfortunately the Canadian Medical Association is no longer making available their database of clinical practice guidelines. They suggest this list of alternative sources. 

Clinical Trials

ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world. Explore 437,957 research studies in all 50 states and in 221 countries.

Conference Board of Canada 

Provides full-text access to Conference Board of Canada reports. Areas covered include: Canadian and provincial economic trends, human resources management, governance, corporate social responsibility, marketing, corporate finance, and taxation.

Search Engines

• 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.

Government Documents

Government of Canada Publications

Statistics

Statistics Canada Catalogue

Theses

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global 

  Search here for unpublished theses and dissertations from across North America. Many public health topics are covered.

Other Suggestions:

NIH RePORTER

An electronic tool that allows users to search a database of NIH-funded research projects and access publications and patents resulting from NIH funding

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.

For a more comprehensive list of grey literature sources, please see the excellent What is Grey Literature? website by the Gerstein Science Information Centre.