Library Resources for DrPH Dissertation

Before you're able to look for literature that is specific to your research topic, you'll need to spend some time looking for what research has already been done. Keep these searches simple, only a couple of keywords at a time.

These searches might yield lots of results, because they're very broad. Use filters in PubMed to narrow down your results by publication date or article type. Review articles will cover a topic broadly, and those authors have already done the work of seeking out the literature on that topic. DON'T use the "Free Full Text" filter, because you have access to many, many subscription articles through Emory.

For your dissertation, you will be writing a needs assessment, a preparedness plan, a health policy or program implementation, or a program or response evaluation. Reading examples of this type of research may be informative for your dissertation. Fortunately, because this type of research is established and standardized, it's relatively easy to find articles of any of these types.

You can add any of the following keywords, in quotation marks, to your topic search to find that type of research:

"needs assessment"

"preparedness plan"

"policy implementation"

"program implementation"

(or just "implementation")

"program evaluation"

"response evaluation"

Here's what that may look like: