Healthy People 2020 Structured Evidence Queries
Practice Informed by Research
This resource provides pre-formulated PubMed search strategies to find published literature to support achieving Healthy People 2020 objectives.
About this Project
The National Library of Medicine (NLM),
National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion,
have worked together to develop preformulated search strategies (structured evidence queries)
that search high-quality, peer-reviewed scientific literature to identify research evidence
for selected
Healthy People 2020 objectives.
These one-click strategies search
PubMed,
an NLM database that provides access to millions of citations from MEDLINE,
life science and public health journals, and on-line books. PubMed
includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.
Click on the topic areas listed above to link to specific search strategies.
This site is supported by the
NLM with the assistance
of the collaboration, Partners in Information Access for
the Public Health Workforce.
Your feedback is important to this project and will be greatly
appreciated.
To share the resource with colleagues and staff, this
handout provides a project overview.
HP2020 SEQs FAQs
- What is Healthy People 2020 (HP2020)?
- What are the Healthy People 2020 Structured Evidence Queries (SEQs)?
- What is Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce, and does it have resources I might find useful?
- What is PubMed?
- How can I use a SEQ to find relevant research?
- How do I find tools and resources to evaluate the quality and usefulness of the research results?
- Can I modify a search strategy to better focus my PubMed search results?
- How do I sort the search results by relevance?
- Can I save and e-mail my results and searches?
- Where can I learn more about how to search PubMed?
- How can I obtain copies of articles that I find cited in PubMed?
- I want information on public health topics other than those in the Healthy People 2020 topic areas. How can I find information on these topics?
- I need information about community interventions. Where can I find information about projects and activities that have not yet been written up in a journal article?
- I need information related to the HP 2020 topic areas for consumers and the public. Where can I find information that I can share, preferably in many different languages?
- Where are the rest of the Healthy People 2020 topics areas?
- Where can I find search strategies related to Healthy People 2010 objectives?
- Guide to Evaluating the Quality and Methodology of Public Health Research Results Provides guidance on searching public health literature and assessing research results.
- Reach Effectiveness Adoption Implementation Maintenance (RE-AIM) The RE-AIM framework is designed to enhance the quality, speed, and public health impact of efforts to translate research into practice.
- Health Evidence Practice Tools Resources to help public health professionals find and use research evidence.
- Evidence-Informed Public Health: Appraise Critical appraisal tools to assess quality and relevance of public health research evidence.
- NLM has many specialized resources that will help you quickly find up-to-date information and data from high quality sources drawn from all levels of government as well as from non-government organizations. PHPartners (Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce) PHPartners.org draws from the websites of the 14 governmental and non-profit organizations that comprise PHPartners, as well as other high-value sources. Information has been organized especially for the Public Health Workforce and is updated regularly. You can browse by public health topic or use the PHPartners search engine box (top right of page).
- Public Health Systems and Services Research Special topic page on data, policy and analysis in support of public health.
- HSR_Information_Central Specially-curated set of resources to high quality data and analysis resources for the health services research community. Special topics include:
- TOXNET NLM's portal to databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health and toxic releases. Explore additional resources related to Environmental Health and Toxicology, including information intended for use by health professionals as well as resources for the public, both K-12 and adult, on such topics as:
-
Disaster Information Management Research Center Responsible for the collection, organization and dissemination of health information resources and informatics research related to disasters of natural, accidental, or deliberate origin. It connects to such diverse NLM resources as:
- Resource Guide for Disaster Medicine and Public Health Gateway to freely available online resources related to disaster medicine and public health.
- Hazardous Substances Databank (HSDB®) Comprehensive toxicology database.
- Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders (WISER®) Disaster and emergency response tools for planners, first responders, and health care providers to assist with the management of chemical, radiological, and biological emergencies.
- Radiation Emergency Medical Management (REMM) Tool for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of mass casualty radiological/nuclear events.
- Chemical Hazards Emergency Medical Management (CHEMM) Tool for planning, response and recovery related to chemical mass casualty incidents.
- ACHIEVE (Action Communities for Health, Innovation, and EnVironmental changE): Partnership sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with selected national organizations to promote healthy communities -- to develop and implement policy, systems, and environmental change strategies that will help prevent or manage health-risk factors for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, obesity, and arthritis.
- AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange: Structured searchable database of innovations and tools to improve quality and reduce disparities in health care from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
- HSRProj (Health Services Research Projects in Progress): Structured searchable database of current ongoing health services research projects that have been funded but not yet published, from NLM. Projects include public health systems and services projects from across the U.S., and represent more than 115 distinct funders.
- NACCHO Model Practice Database: Structured searchable database of model and promising practices in public health from the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO).
What is Healthy People 2020 (HP2020)?
Healthy People is a national health promotion program to improve the health of all Americans. Initiated in 1979 and led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Healthy People provides science-based, ten-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans.
HP2020 is organized into 42 subject areas with 600 public health objectives. Developed and selected through consultation with a broad range of organizations, groups and individuals, these objectives provide a framework for monitoring and measuring improvements in health status of the American population over the decade from 2010 to 2020.
What are the Healthy People 2020 Structured Evidence Queries (SEQs)?
HP2020 SEQs are special preformulated PubMed searches for HP2020 objectives. The purpose of the HP2020 SEQ is to make it easier for people working to achieve HP2020 objectives to quickly find current information from published and evidence-based literature.
The search queries were developed by public health librarians, working in consultation with subject matter experts in public health.
The search queries will be updated and refined over time, and will ultimately be available for all objectives.
What is Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce, and does it have resources I might find useful?
Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce (PHPartners) is a collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations and health sciences libraries. The purpose of PHPartners is to help the public health workforce find and use information effectively to improve and protect the public's health.
In addition, the site highlights resources on special topics of interest to the Public Health workforce that will complement your use of the SEQs. Special Topics Include:
What is PubMed?
PubMed is NLM's free online database comprised of millions of citations and abstracts for biomedical and health services literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. It encompasses those areas of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, health services research, chemical sciences, and bioengineering needed by health professionals and others engaged in basic research and clinical care, public health, health policy development, and related educational activities.
How can I use a SEQ to find relevant research?
New citations are continually added to the PubMed database as new research is published, so clicking on a SEQ at a later time will retrieve the most up-to-date results and may retrieve new citations.
Most of the HP2020 SEQs search strategies have been limited by date to the most recent five years so as to provide the most current information relating to HP2020 topics, and to return a manageable number of citations.
How do I find tools and resources to evaluate the quality and usefulness of the research results?
The quality of published research varies. There are several tools available to evaluate the quality, relevance, and usefulness of research evidence to achieve health promotion and disease prevention goals and objectives.
Can I modify a search strategy to better focus my PubMed search results?
Searching is an iterative process. While the HP2020 SEQs were carefully constructed to address the objectives, your specific research needs may require that you tailor the search further. You can add or modify search terms in a SEQ, and even save a modified search for your subsequent use.
An overview of searching PubMed is available at PubMed Quick Start, including brief web-tutorials, PubMed Online Training "Quick Tours." PubMed Help also provides additional searching tips including Searching PubMed, Limits, Advanced Search, Understanding Your Search Results, Displaying and Sorting Your Search Results, and Displaying the Search Details.
How do I sort the search results by relevance?
The search results in PubMed are displayed in the order they were entered in PubMed. To sort the search results by relevance, select "Relevance" from the Display Settings drop-down menu.
Can I save and e-mail my results and searches?
A SEQ will identify the most recent relevant literature at the date the search is run. If you are satisfied with the set of citations you receive from a search, you should consider saving those citations. You can store a collection of citations, save a personally-modified search strategy, and set automatic email updates of searches with the tool, My NCBI.
More information is available from PubMed Help at Saving and E-mailing Results and Searches and My NCBI.
Where can I learn more about how to search PubMed?
Additional information about searching PubMed is available at PubMed Help, PubMed Quick Start, PubMed Online Training, and at NLM Training Manuals and Resources. You can contact customer support at the PubMed Help Desk and at 1-888-FIND-NLM (1-888-346-3656).
You might also consider taking PubMed training via the National Library of Medicine Training Center or the NLM National Network of Libraries of Medicine. The training is provided free of charge.
Check with your own library - including your public library - which may be a member of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. They might be able to help you find additional classes that are being offered locally via conferences, universities, etc.
How can I obtain copies of articles that I find cited in PubMed?
PubMed is not a full-text database, but many articles are available for free. If you have an affiliation with a medical or public library, you may have access to journals via an institutional subscription. Icons from publishers or other full-text sources are provided in the citation and abstract display formats for PubMed citations. More information is available at Links to Full Text from Your Library (Library LinkOut Filters) (brief web-tutorial), How to Get the Journal Article How to Access Journal Articles.
Additionally, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine assists public health workers with training on how to use PubMed, PHPartners.org and other Web resources, providing speakers for educational programs or meetings, obtaining copies of journal articles, and identifying local health library resources. Contact them at http://nnlm.gov or call 1-800-338-7657.
I want information on public health topics other than those in the Healthy People 2020 topic areas. How can I find information on these topics?
I need information about community interventions. Where can I find information about projects and activities that have not yet been written up in a journal article?
PubMed and the HP2020 SEQs connect to research that has been published. For high-quality descriptions of activities and projects "in the field" that haven't yet been published, check out:
Additional resources are also available from the Healthy People 2020 website.
I need information related to the HP 2020 topic areas for consumers and the public. Where can I find information that I can share, preferably in many different languages?
MedlinePlus is NLM's website for patients and consumer information. MedlinePlus, updated daily, has extensive information from the NIH and other trusted sources on over 900 diseases and conditions. There are directories, a medical encyclopedia and a medical dictionary, easy-to-understand tutorials on common conditions, tests, and treatments, extensive information on prescription and nonprescription drugs, health information from the media, and links to thousands of clinical trials. It is fully available in Spanish and has extensive consumer resources available in over 40 other languages. There is no advertising on this site, nor does MedlinePlus endorse any company or product.
Click here 
to see a
list of MedlinePlus topics for the associated Healthy People 2020 topic.
Where are the rest of the Healthy People 2020 topics areas?
We are developing unique SEQs for all of the HP2020 topic areas, and for virtually all of the objectives and sub-objectives. We will add them to our site as they are completed. Please check back again frequently for newly-added topic areas.
A small number of sub-objectives will not have a unique PubMed search. Some sub-objectives - for example, in some of the "developmental" topics - may not yet have much unique published literature associated with the measure. In such cases, the decision was made to link to the SEQ for the objective rather than provide a limited search retrieval for the sub-objective.
Where can I find search strategies related to Healthy People 2010 objectives?
The Healthy People 2010 Information Access Project is an archived resource that provides preformulated PubMed search strategies in support of Healthy People 2010 objectives. The site is no longer maintained and is provided for reference purposes only.
Contributors
The National Library of Medicine would like to acknowledge the following people for their time and expertise in the development and review of these search strategies:
Access to Health Services
Topic Expert:
- Claire A. Weschler, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
- Samara Lorenz, Health Resources and Services Administration
Librarian:
- Dr. B. Lynn Whitener
Adolescent Health
Topic Expert:
- Dr. Trina Anglin, Health Resources and Services Administration
Librarian:
- Julie Smith
Arthritis, Osteoporosis, and Chronic Back Conditions
Topic Expert:
- Healthy People 2020 working group
Librarian:
- Kristin Hitchcock
Chronic Kidney Disease
Topic Expert:
- Dr. Lawrence Agodoa, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health
Librarian:
- Kimberly Mitchell, Assistant Director of Library Services, at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Dementias including Alzheimer's Disease
Topic Expert:
- Dallas Anderson, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health
- Marie Bernard, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health
- Zita Givens, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health
Librarian:
- Assako Holyoke, Saint Louis University Medical Center Library
Diabetes
Topic Expert:
- Dr. Sanford Garfield, National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health
Librarian:
- Rachel Walden, Medical Librarian at Eskind Biomedical Library, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Early and Middle Childhood
Topic Expert:
- Healthy People 2020 working group
Librarian:
- Julie Smith
Family Planing
Topic Expert:
- Susan Newcomer, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health
Librarian:
- Rachel Walden, Medical Librarian at Eskind Biomedical Library, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Food Safety
Topic Expert:
- Elisa Elliot, Food and Drug Administration
Librarian:
- Kris Alpi, North Carolina State University
Genomics
Topic Expert:
- Healthy People 2020 working group
Librarian:
- Kris Alpi, North Carolina State University
Health Communication and HIT
Topic Expert:
- Linda Harris, HHS
- Cynthia Baur, CDC
- Healthy People 2020 working group
Librarian:
- Dr. B. Lynn Whitener
Healthcare-Associated Infections
Topic Expert:
- Daniel Gallardo, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health and Human Services
- Rani Jeeva, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health and Human Services
Librarian:
- Jean Blackwell, University of North Carolina
Maternal, Infant and Child Health
Topic Expert:
- Reem Gandour, HRSA
- Healthy People 2020 working group
Librarian:
- Wendy Scott-Williams
Medical Product Safety
Topic Expert:
- Mary Ghods, Food and Drug Administration
Librarian:
- Kris Alpi, North Carolina State University
Mental Health and Mental Disorders
Topic Expert:
- Kevin Malone, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration
Librarian:
- Brenda Eames, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research
Nutrition and Weight Status
Topic Expert:
- Mark A. Kantor, Food and Drug Administration
Librarian:
- Dr. B. Lynn Whitener
Oral Health
Topic Expert:
- Healthy People 2020 working group
Librarian:
- Lisa McGuire
Physical Activity
Topic Expert:
- Jane Wargo, Department of Health and Human Services
Librarian:
- Dr. B. Lynn Whitener
Preparedness
Topic Expert:
- Jonathan Ban, Department of Health and Human Services
Librarian:
- Lisa McGuire
Sleep Health
Topic Expert:
- Michael Twery, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health
Librarian:
- Jeannine Gluck
Substance Abuse
Topic Expert:
- Kevin Malone, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Librarian:
- Clare Imholz
Tobacco Use
Topic Expert:
- Healthy People 2020 working group
Librarian:
- Clare Imholz
Vision
Topic Expert:
- Rosemary Janiszewski, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health
- Shelly Heath-Watson, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health
Librarian:
- Nicole Mitchell