Library Resources for DrPH Dissertation

Grey literature is information that is produced and disseminated outside of traditional peer-reviewed scientific publishing. Examples of grey literature include theses, dissertations, conference abstracts and presentations, official government documents, reports, informal communication, research-in-progress, or clinical trials, any of which can be produced by government agencies, NGOs, academic institutions, or business.

Grey literature:

• is not widely disseminated
• can be difficult to find
• may contain more information as they lack publication length stipulations 
• can be produced and disseminated much faster than published literature
• is less expensive to access than traditional closed-access literature
• may not be subject to rigorous peer review process
• is often not archived

You can search for grey literature directly on organization websites, through aggregators or databases, or by using advanced Google searching techniques.

These are some common sources of grey literature in the health sciences; some of these resources are free to use, and others are licensed through Emory Libraries. This is not an exhaustive list, and you are encouraged to seek out organizations specific to your topic.

• CDC Stacks (N/A): Collection of CDC publications including guidelines and recommendations and MMWR reports.     
• Clinicaltrials.gov (2000-present): ClinicalTrials.gov is a database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies conducted around the world.
• Factiva (N/A): A collection of publications and websites in a variety of languages.
• Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) (1948-present): The digital library of the World Health Organization (WHO)s published material and technical information. Its content is freely accessible and searchable in the six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian & Spanish).
• National Technical Reports Literature (NTRL) (1964-present): Access to a large collection of historical and current authenticated government technical reports in a wide range of subject areas, including health care, environmental pollution, medicine, biology, and engineering.
• Nexis Uni (1789-present): Access to news, business, medical, educational and legal sources. The sources include international, national, and regional newspapers; magazines; trade journals; newsletters; wire service reports; and transcripts of television and radio news programs.
• PAIS Index (1915-present): Indexes books, periodicals and selected local, state, national, and international government documents in the areas of public policy, social policy and the social sciences from 1915 onward. 
• Policy Commons (N/A): Preserves and provides access to curated policy reports and briefs, analyses, working papers, books, case studies, tables, charts, media, and statistical publications from policy organizations (NGOs, IGOs, foundations, government, think tanks, agencies, etc.) from around the world.
• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (1861-present): The official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress.   
• WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (N/A): The main aim of the WHO ICTRP is to facilitate the prospective registration of the WHO Trial Registration Data Set on all clinical trials, and the public accessibility of that information.

Use these search limits to focus your search to certain types of websites, file types, and URLs. Insert these limits directly after your query in the search bar of Google. 

Limit to a Domain

These limits will ensure your results are only from .org, .gov, or .com websites, respectively:

• site:org
• site:gov
• site:com

Limit to a Filetype

These will limit the documents to find to only specific filetypes.

• filetype:pdf
• filetype:doc
• filetype:ppt

Search for Words in a URL

inurl:

Examples:

• inurl:rand.org
• inurl:cdc.gov