Resource Guide
for Disaster Medicine and Public Health

Help / Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The Resource Guide is a Web-accessible bibliographic database of electronic resources related to disaster medicine and public health. Some of the resources focus on how the public health workforce can improve its readiness to respond to emergencies; others provide guidance on how to mitigate and manage the public health consequences of disasters.
The Resource Guide is a tool for practice-based public health professionals who need to find disaster medicine and public health information in the fullest form, and in the quickest way possible.

Materials are selected for those who work or do research in disaster medicine and public health. Prior to June 2011, records were selected primarily for the public health workforce and each record was described with one or more Audience Types.

The Resource Guide provides access only to those items freely available on the Web in an electronic format. Some resources may require a free registration to access. Materials available only in print or that are accessed through paid subscriptions are not included.
The Resource Guide includes a variety of materials including research and review articles, guidelines and protocols, Web sites and fact sheets (see Publication Types for a complete list.) See Sources Scanned for Resource Guide Content for a list of organizations that are reviewed for current content.

New resources are added to the database as found. A date stamp is provided on the bottom of each page indicating when the database was last updated.

Filters were developed to allow for materials to be selected or filtered based on several indicators.
The filters used in the Resource Guide were selected based on discussions with members of the public health workforce and research community. They include Publication Type, Event Type, and Subject Headings.

In an attempt to create a controlled vocabulary with a natural language feel, the Subject Headings were developed using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Taxonomy of Human Services (THS, by Georgia Sales), the Hazlit Database and the literature of the field.
Each record receives up to three headings from a broad to narrow scope that imitates the normal cataloging practice of subdivisions but in a "keyword searchable" approach.

A simple keyword search will search for your term in the following fields: Title & Subtitle, Subject Headings, Annotation, Author, Source (name or acronym), Access Notes, Standard Number and URL. Two additional fields - Other Authors and Author Institution - are searched, but are not displayed.

If the Resource Guide is returning no results for your search, try a broader subject approach (for example, Vaccines instead of Vaccinia virus).
If the Resource Guide is not returning relevant search results, look at the "full view" to see why those records are being retrieved. Are the search terms you used included in the title, abstract, or annotation? Look at the subject terms, and consider what relationship they might have to your search.
Still no luck? Contact us. We will investigate any problems with the database and attempt to find relevant resources for your search term(s).

First check the resource web site for links to browser plug-ins or external programs that are required for viewing documents or media files hosted on that site.
If you don't find the necessary information on the hosting site, or a resource URL points directly to a document or media file, you can refer to the plug-in directory for links to commonly used plug-ins.
Still no luck? Contact us. We will attempt to assist you with finding a viewer for a specific format and platform.