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Background Information
You can find background information by looking at reference materials:
Library Search > Resource Type > Reference Entries
Resources to get you started:
- Background Information
- Social Determinants of Health
- Social Determinants of Health - Canada
- Social Determinants of Health - PHAC
- Social Determinants of Health - WHO
- Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts - Mikkonen and Raphael
Focus your Research Question
- General > Specific
- think about all of the aspects of your topic
- use a topic map
- Use PICO or SPICE framework to help
- PICO
- Population
- Intervention/Issue
- Comparison
- Outcome
- SPICE
- Setting (Where? in what context?)
- Population or Perspective (For whom?)
- Intervention/Issue (What?)
- Comparison (What else?)
- Evaluation (How well? What result?)
- Example: What role does food security play in obesity amongst indigenous people in Canada?
- SETTING – Canada
- POPULATION – Indigenous people
- ISSUE – SDoH > food security
- COMPARISON – None
- EVALUATION – Health outcome > obesity
- Example: What role does food security play in obesity amongst indigenous people in Canada?
- PICO
Search Techniques
- Identify main concepts
- Synonyms/related terms (food security, food insecurity)
- Keywords Boolean operators
- AND (for combining different concepts, finds fewer results)
- OR (for combining synonyms, finds more results)
- NOT (remove unwanted results)
- Phrase searching (“food security”)
- Truncation (equit*)
- Controlled vocabulary
- Similar/Related articles
- Citing/Reference tracking
- Review articles
- Search History
Databases:
- Proquest platform includes (guides for each of the databases can be found here)
- Ebscohost platform includes (guides on how to use the platform can be found here)
- Library Search
Grey Literature
Grey literature is defined as "information produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing" ie. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body." — ICGL Luxembourg definition, 1997. Expanded in New York, 2004
- Grey Literature search tools
- Find GovDoc Publication by Department or Agency
- Canadian Public Documents Collection
- Think Tanks Search
- Conference Board of Canada
- Google search string that limits to federal and provincial government top level webpages:
- (site:.canada.ca OR site:.gc.ca OR site:.on.ca OR site:.bc.ca OR site:.ab.ca OR site:.mb.ca OR site:.sk.ca OR site:qc.ca OR site:nb.ca OR site:.ns.ca OR site:.pe.ca OR site:.nl.ca OR site:.nu.ca OR site:.nt.ca OR site:.yt.ca)
- combine with your search terms
What is the Difference Between Data and Statistics?
Data are the raw materials out of which statistics are produced, usually available as digital files for manipulation in statistical software. To find data resources available to Carleton faculty, staff and students see Find Data. Statistics are facts or figures that tend to be aggregate counts, totals, sums, or averages.
Tools/Guides at Carleton
Other Tools
- Government of Canada > Health > Health science, research and data
- Social Determinants of Health - PHAC
- Worldbank
- WHO/GHO
