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HEA 460: Special Topics in Health Education: Start Here

This guide will help students in HEA 460 with their research needs and assignments.

HEA 460 PreTest

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Writing Assistance

How To Write A Research Paper

Tips & Tricks

  • Choose the Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed Journal checkbox in each database before you press search.
  • Limit your search to full text only if you’re interested in finding articles that are immediately available.

  • The use of Boolean Operators is an effective search strategy. Using the words AND or NOT will limit your search results, providing you with fewer hits. Using the word OR will expand your search and provide a greater number of results.

    To see how this works, visit The Boolean Machine.

  • Truncation can expand your search results to include information or concepts that you may otherwise overlook. By using a "wildcard" in your search, you may find several variations of the same word or concept.

    For an overview of truncation, visit Owens Library's Truncation page.

Example of an Effective Search

If your assignment calls for you to find information on health disparities, you may search for 

"health disparities"

in a database (to find articles) or in the Library Catalog (to find books). Using quotation marks around the phrase lets the database (or catalog) know that you need information on "health disparities" and not health AND disparities.

When searching for articles, limit your search to match your search needs.

  • For example, if you need scholarly (or peer-reviewed) articles, select the related box on the left side of the screen.
  • If you need articles published in the last 5 years, change the dates on the left side of the screen to 2011-2016.
  • If you're doing historical research, you can change the dates to find older information. For example, you could change the search dates to 1940-1960 and the database will list all articles published on your topic during that time frame.
  • If you need articles on health disparities related to race, you might want to search for "health disparities" AND (Black OR "African American").
  • If you need articles on health disparities related to economic class, you may want to search for "health disparities" AND "middle class," etc.
  • After you press Search, browse through the list of articles provided. Reading abstracts is a good way to know if an article is right for you. Abstracts can be found beneath the title of peer-reviewed articles.
  • If you feel overwhelmed by a large number of articles, add another search term to limit results further. You can also click Full text to see only articles available in their entirety.
  • Remember: If you don't find what you're looking for in a database, search a different database. Many different databases and ejournals are available to you. You might find only an abstract to an article in one database but a different database might have the full text, so explore all your options.

Healthy People 2020

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About Healthy People

Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. For 3 decades, Healthy People has established benchmarks and monitored progress over time in order to:

  • Encourage collaborations across communities and sectors.
  • Empower individuals toward making informed health decisions.
  • Measure the impact of prevention activities.

Introducing Healthy People 2020

Healthy People 2020 continues in this tradition with the launch on December 2, 2010 of its ambitious, yet achievable, 10-year agenda for improving the Nation’s health. Healthy People 2020 is the result of a multiyear process that reflects input from a diverse group of individuals and organizations. Read the press release for the Healthy People 2020 launch. [PDF - 149 KB]

Vision

A society in which all people live long, healthy lives.

Mission

Healthy People 2020 strives to:

  • Identify nationwide health improvement priorities.
  • Increase public awareness and understanding of the determinants of health, disease, and disability and the opportunities for progress.
  • Provide measurable objectives and goals that are applicable at the national, State, and local levels.
  • Engage multiple sectors to take actions to strengthen policies and improve practices that are driven by the best available evidence and knowledge.
  • Identify critical research, evaluation, and data collection needs.

Overarching Goals

  • Attain high-quality, longer lives free of preventable disease, disability, injury, and premature death.
  • Achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups.
  • Create social and physical environments that promote good health for all.
  • Promote quality of life, healthy development, and healthy behaviors across all life stages.

Four foundation health measures will serve as an indicator of progress towards achieving these goals:

 

Resources

Use these resources to explore issues related to Public Health 3.0.

Health Indicators Warehouse (HIW)

The Health Indicators Warehouse (HIW) is a comprehensive source for data on national, state, and county health indicators. HIW serves as the data hub for the Health and Human Services (HHS) Community Health Data Initiative. 

Search for data related to Healthy People 2020 objectives:
2. In the search box, type in a keyword or the objective number you want to find (e.g., “heart attack” or “HDS-16”). To find objective numbers, select the topic area you are interested in from this list, and view the objectives tab.
3. Press the enter key.
4. Select the objective or topic from the search results.

Or, view all indicators related to Healthy People 2020. 

 

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