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
• Routledge international handbook of colorism

Databases for journal articles

Databases let you easily to search for articles from within scholarly journals for a discipline.

• How to find journal articles tutorial. 
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?

If the full-text of the article is not available within the database then 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
• Sociological Abstracts -- key database for sociology and anthropology journals and for issues such as structural inequalities
• Anthropology Plus - Key database for Anthropological journal articles. Focus on ethnic groups.
• 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

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:

• (race OR gender OR women) AND ("medical technol*" OR "health technolog*" OR "clinical practic*")
  • results limited to selected subjects
• (race OR gender OR women) AND (medicine OR medical) AND (cultur* OR histor*)
• (race OR gender OR women) AND (medicine OR medical) AND (education OR training)
• (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*)
• structural AND (inequalit* OR inequit* OR race OR class OR gender*) AND (covid OR "global pandemic*")
• (medic* OR health) AND (aborig* OR indigen*) AND canad*
• (medic* OR health) AND minorit* AND canad*
• [name of a disease] AND [name of a group]
• (Covid-19 OR Coronavirus) AND [name of a group]

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:

•  
  Aboriginal populations : social, demographic. and epidemiological perspectives [another e-book copy]
• Coronavirus Human, Social and Political Implications
• COVID-19 in the Global South: Impacts and Responses
• Cultural safety, healthcare and vulnerable populations : a critical theoretical perspective
• Diagnosis as cultural practice [print]
• Diagnostic controversy : cultural perspectives on competing knowledge in healthcare
• Equity and access : health care studies in India
•  
  Gender and the Science of Difference : Cultural Politics of Contemporary Science and Medicine [print]
•  
  Gender, careers and inequalities in medicine and medical education : international perspectives
• Gendered Drugs and Medicine: Historical and Socio-Cultural Perspectives
• Getting to Zero : a Doctor and a Diplomat on the Ebola Frontline
• Global Pharmaceutical Policy
• Governing the Female Body : Gender, Health, and Networks of Power
• Health and health care concerns among women and racial and ethnic minorities
•  
  Health disparities, diversity, and inclusion : context, controversies, and solutions
• Health, illness, and society : an introduction to medical sociology
•  
  Health inequities in Canada : intersectional frameworks and practices
• Impact of sex and gender in the COVID-19 pandemic: case study
•  
  Indirect action : schizophrenia, epilepsy, AIDS, and the course of health activism

•  
  Mapping the sociology of health and medicine : America, Britain, and Australia compared
• 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
•  
  Precarious Prescriptions Contested Histories of Race and Health in North America
• Race, ethnicity, gender and other social characteristics as factors in health and health care disparities
• Racial prescriptions : pharmaceuticals, difference, and the politics of life
• Reproduction, health, and medicine
• Social injustice and public health
• Surviving in the hour of darkness : the health and wellness of women of colour and indigenous women [print]
• Viral pandemics : from smallpox to COVID-19

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
• Diagnosis -- Cross-cultural
• Discrimination in medical care
• 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
• Minorities -- Health and hygiene
• Pandemics: See Epidemics
• Plague  -- History
• Public health -- Social aspects
• Social medicine
• Social Science -- Disease & health issues
• Women -- Health and hygiene
• Women in medicine

Government documents and statistics

Government documents

Canada

• 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.
  • Covid-19 A Data Perspective
  • COVID-19 in Canada: A One-year Update on Social and Economic Impacts

United States

• Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  • Health Equality Considerations and Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups
  • Risk for COVID-19 Infection, Hospitalization, and Death By Race/Ethnicity

International

• World Health Organization
  • Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19)
  • Statistics related to Covid-19

Database

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

Feminist theory website

• Feminist Theory Website - "provides research materials" - fields within feminism; national and ethnic feminisms; Individual feminists

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]
• Library Research Skills [interactive tutorial]
• Popular versus scholarly sources [video]
• What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal?
• What is plagiarism? [guide]
• Evaluating sources
• How to Write an Annotated Bibliography
• More Tutorials