Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

You may also wish to check out the library guide: Global Health Information Resources for additional ideas.

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Use encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks to obtain definitions and overviews of a topic and also to identify key authors.

• Ashgate research companion to the globalization of health
• Global burden of disease and risk factors
• International encyclopedia of public health
• Routledge handbook of medical anthropology

Databases for journal articles

How to find journal articles tutorial. 

What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?

The databases below will provide articles on information technology and society.  If the full-text of the article is not available, use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

• Women's Studies International - for any issues related to gender, sexuality and women's studies
• Global Health -- information on international health, biomedical life sciences, non-communicable diseases, public health nutrition, food safety and hygiene, and much more from around the world.
• Academic Search Premier  Multidisciplinary index to academic & popular journals. Also indexes women's studies journals.
• Bibliography of Asian Studies
• Social Sciences Full Text  Multi-disciplinary database
• JSTOR An archival collection of scholarly journals mainly in the arts, humanities and social sciences. For the most part, the database does not provide access to the latest 5 to 7 current years of a journal.

Selected journals

• Bulletin of the History of Medicine (1933 on)
• Health and History (1998 - 2020)
• Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (from 1946 on)
• Medical Anthropology (from 1997 on)
• Medical Anthropology Quarterly
• Medical History (1957 on)
• Medicine Anthropology Theory (from 1983 on)
• Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (from 1957 on)
• Social History of Medicine (from 1988 on)

Find books in the Library

How to use the Library Catalogue  [guide]

Search by topic, using Basic or Advanced Search.  For known items it is best to use "Browse by title" search.

Try searching by keywords and then limit by "Subject" (left-hand column) and "Resource type" of "books":

Examples:

Try searches such as:

• pandemic* AND (poor OR poverty)
• (epidemic* OR pandemic*) AND (class OR sex OR caste OR race OR racial OR gender OR minorit*)
• (Covid-19 OR Coronavirus) AND (inequal* OR unequal OR race OR racial OR gender OR minorit*) AND (impact* OR affect*)
• (epidemic* OR pandemic* OR Covid-19 OR Coronavirus) AND (marginal* OR poor OR poverty OR homeless*)
• (Covid-19 OR Coronavirus) AND [name of a group]
• "global pharmaceuticals"
• "global pharmaceuticals" AND (poor OR poverty OR "developing countries")
• "access to health care" AND (poor OR poverty OR "developing countries")

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words
Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Selected books:

• Coronavirus Human, Social and Political Implications
• Coronavirus Pandemic and Inequality: A Global Perspective
• COVID-19 and Marginalisation of People and Places: Impacts, Responses and Observed Effects of COVID-19 on Geographical Marginality
• COVID-19 in the Global South: Impacts and Responses
• Covid-19 Pandemic : Problems Arising in Health and Social Policy
• Deadly intersections of COVID-19 : race, states, inequalities and global society 
• Equity and access : health care studies in India
• Essential work, disposable workers : migration, capitalism, and class [print]
• Frontline workers and women as warriors in the Covid-19 pandemic
• Gendered Experiences of COVID-19 in India
• Getting to Zero : a Doctor and a Diplomat on the Ebola Frontline
• Global Pharmaceutical Policy
• Global reflections on COVID-19 and urban inequalities. Volume 2, Housing and home 
• Health, illness, and society : an introduction to medical sociology
• Impact of sex and gender in the COVID-19 pandemic: case study
• Indigenous health and well-being in the COVID-19 pandemic
• Lockdown: Social Harm in the Covid-19 Era
• Media, migrants and the pandemic in India : a reader 
• Migrants and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Communication, Inequality, and Transformation
• New Common: How the COVID-19 Pandemic is Transforming Society
• Pandemic health and fitness
• Pandemic Solidarity : Mutual Aid during the Covid-19 Crisis
• Pandemics : a very short introduction
• Plague a very short introduction
• Poor people's medicine Medicaid and American charity care since 1965
• Post-Trial Access to Drugs in Developing Nations: Global Health Justice
• Power of plagues
• Race, ethnicity, gender and other social characteristics as factors in health and health care disparities
• Racial prescriptions : pharmaceuticals, difference, and the politics of life
• Social injustice and public health
• Social Movements and Politics during COVID-19 : Crisis, Solidarity and Change in a Global Pandemic
• Socio-demographic perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic 
• Transformations in Social Science Research Methods During the COVID-19 Pandemic 
• Viral pandemics : from smallpox to COVID-19
• What world is this? : a pandemic phenomenology / Judith Butler
• When the Crisis Becomes an Opportunity: The Role of Women in the Post-Covid Organization
• Who we are now : stories of what Americans lost and found during the COVID-19 pandemic

Browse subject headings for books

Browse by Subject    (change the default "title" to "subject").  Browse by Subject will only result in books, not book chapters or journal articles.

• [name of disease] -- History
• [name of disease] -- Social aspects
• [name of disease] -- [name of country or region]
• Communicable diseases -- History
• Covid-19
• Ebola virus disease
• Epidemics
• Epidemics -- History
• Epidemics -- Prevention and control
• Epidemics -- Social aspects
• Health services accessibility
• HIV infections - History
• HIV infections - Social aspects
• Medical Anthropology
• Pandemics: See Epidemics
• Plague  -- History
• Public health -- Social aspects
• Social medicine

Government documents and statistics

Government documents

• Statistics Canada - is the major statistical gathering agency of the Canadian government. It publishes the "whole range of statistics on the economic and social activities of the Canadian people".  StatsCan also publishes the Census of Canada at five year intervals.
• WHO (World Health Organization): Data and Statistics - WHO Statistical Information System, WHO Global InfoBase Online, Global Health Atlas, regional statistics.

Database

• Statista - gathers data from around the world and also provides the original source from which the statistics were obtained.

Searching using Google

Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar

Search results limited to words in the title of document, using "intitle:".  Use capital "OR" for synonyms. Put braces "(__ OR__ )" around words with the same meaning (synonyms). "AND" is assumed by Google so you don't need to include it in your search strategy.

E.g.

(covid-19 OR coronavirus OR pandemic) (race OR racial OR ethnic* OR class OR gender OR "visible minorit*")

Refine your searches

• Use intitle: to force Google to find those words in the titles of results.  Use quotation marks ("") to search for phrases
  • (covid-19 OR coronavirus OR pandemic) intitle:opinion
  • (covid-19 OR coronavirus OR pandemic) intitle:opinion (race OR racial OR ethnic* OR class OR gender OR "visible minorities")
     
• Use site: to specify results from a government web site
  • site:gov (covid-19 OR coronavirus OR pandemic) (race OR racial OR ethnic* OR class OR gender OR "visible minorit*")

Search for documents from a particular country's domain.  Web country codes

• From a Canadian website
  • site:.ca (covid-19 OR coronavirus OR pandemic) (race OR racial OR ethnic* OR class OR gender OR "visible minorit*")
  • site:.ca (covid-19 OR coronavirus OR pandemic) (race OR racial OR ethnic* OR class OR gender OR "visible minorit*") intitle:opinion

Presentation skills and writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

Library guides

• Developing a topic [video]
• Evaluating sources
• Search tips for Google and Google Scholar
• More Tutorials