Health and Medicine
Science-based resources for patients and families
Save time by going straight to reliable sources. Here are quick links to information, plus tips to develop your skills as a healthcare consumer.
Sharpen your health information skills
Find reliable information
General databases for medical and health topics
MedlinePlus is a first stop for health information in many formats, curated by the National Library of Medicine. Great for overviews of health conditions and information on drugs, supplements, and medical tests. Choose from English or Spanish versions of the site, and find information on popular health topics in many languages.
*Gale Health and Wellness and *Gale eBooks offer reliable information from the Gale Cengage reference publishing company. Find patient health information, professional research articles, and medical reference books for general readers. Both are useful supplements to MedlinePlus. From the Vermont Department of Libraries with support from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
Health information in many languages
Vermont Language Justice Project offers help with practical healthcare questions in many languages. The VLJP’s complete video list includes 19 languages spoken in Vermont, and it covers topics like medical testing, health insurance, mental health concerns, and more.
Sample videos from VLJP. See the complete video list for more.
Health specialties
American Academy of Pediatrics and Healthy Children, “The AAP Parenting Website”
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness-Vermont provides local resources and links to fact sheets and research on mental health concerns.
Track public health research and policy
HealthMap lets you search by condition or location to learn about infectious disease trends. It’s a project of the Computational Epidemiology Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, which aggregates public health resources and disease data to inform the general public and public health policy makers.
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
Vaccine Education Center from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
The Evidence Collective “TEC Briefs are focused, actionable documents that synthesize critical information on time-sensitive public health topics.”
Search scholarly and professional medical literature
PubMed from the National Library of Medicine is a premier source for researchers and healthcare professionals. PubMed can also help consumers who want to see some of the research behind medical recommendations. For useful background, see Understanding Medical Research from the National Library of Medicine.
