Public Health: Grey literature
Created by Health Science Librarians
Where do I find grey literature?
U.S. Government Resources
- ProQuest CongressionalComprehensive source of current and historical U.S. Congressional material, including bills, testimony, reports, documents, selected prints, and code. The database also includes editorially created topic pages, including on common public health topics.
- ProQuest Trends & Policy: U.S. HealthThis collection connects policies implemented by the U.S. government with the data-driven results and trends of those policies and provides context with analytical reports and news articles.
- The Community GuideA collection of evidence-based findings of the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF). Identifies evidence-based interventions to improve health and prevent disease in the U.S.
- Development Experience ClearinghouseSearch a half-century of U.S. international aid records via USAID.
- National Technical Reports LibraryU.S. government-sponsored technical reports on health, environmental, engineering, business, and scientific topics.
- U.S. National Library of Medicine - ClinicalTrials.govClinicalTrials.gov is a registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world. ClinicalTrials.gov also provides links to related citations in the PubMed.gov database.
North Carolina Resources
- NC Division of Public HealthThe NC Department of Health and Human Services' Division of Public Health provides high-level annual reports, documents from several specialist working groups, and summaries of common public health subjects and services
Many independent organizations produce grey literature in the health sciences. Their work can generally be located on their websites, either by using a search box (if present) or by identifying a section of their site dedicated to publications. The list below includes some useful sources, but in many cases a search for grey literature will include identification of other organizations whose work is relevant to a research question.
- DimensionsCitation database that includes policy documents and grey literature from governmental and NGO sources, in addition to books and journals. Create an account with your UNC email address for full access.
- Industry Documents LibraryDigital document archive of public-health related industry content, including reports, letters, memos, presentations, marketing materials, and more from tobacco, drug, chemical, food, and fossil fuel industries.
- IRIS (Institutional Repository for Information Sharing)Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) is the digital library of WHO's published material in full text produced since 1948. There are collections for each Regional Office, WHO Headquarters and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Contol (FCTC).
- RAND Publication DatabasePapers and reports on topics of current public policy interest, including criminal justice, education, health, national security and international affairs, energy, environment, and science and technology. Contains indexing records for all of RAND's publicly available documents, many with links to full text reports.
- UNICEF PublicationsInternational humanitarian organization documents and reports organized by topic. Covers child health, WaSH, education, nutrition, policy, and more.
- World Institute for Development Economics ResearchThe World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) is the first research and training centre of the United Nations University (UNU). UNU-WIDER undertakes applied research and policy analysis on global development and poverty issues.
- WHO International Clinical Trials RegistryTrial information from Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, China, India, Korea, Cuba, Germany, Iran, Japan, Pan African, Sri Lanka, and The Netherlands
- Google Custom Search: Intergovernmental OrganizationsSearches intergovernmental organizations via the Google Search engine.
- Google Custom Search: Non-Governmental OrganizationsSearches non-governmental organizations via the Google Search engine.
- Google Custom Search: Think TanksSearch across 300 of the most important US and international think tanks
- Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)This open access database searches theses and dissertations worldwide.
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses GlobalIndexes US dissertations from 1861 with full text available from 1997; masters theses are covered selectively, including some full text. Citations for dissertations from 1980 include 350-word abstracts, while masters' theses from 1988 have 150-word abstracts. Selectively covers dissertations from Great Britain and other European universities for recent years.
- Carolina Digital RepositoryThe Carolina Digital Repository (CDR), UNC-Chapel Hill's institutional repository, contains scholarly work and research files produced or collected by faculty, students and staff at the University.
Papers presented at conferences are sometimes collected and published in academic journals, often in supplements. These documents are referred to in different ways, including congresses, meeting papers, and conference proceedings. They may be found in databases or on conference or organization websites.
Preprints — early versions of journal articles made available before completing peer review — are included in some citation databases, like those linked below. Consider also searching the websites of relevant journals or repositories.
- ScopusA large citation and abstracting database providing comprehensive coverage of the peer-reviewed journal and conference literature, with links to full-text where available through the library. Searches can be filtered by subject area to include only health sciences-related documents.
- DimensionsDatabase of citations to journal articles (including preprints), conference proceedings, and policy documents.
Note: To use the full range of Dimensions’ tools and resource categories, register for an account using your University email. Doing so will take you to UNC-Chapel Hill’s single sign-on page. Follow the instructions to create your account.
Google Advanced Search for Grey Literature
Several features of Google Advanced Search are useful for locating grey literature on the web:
- Limiting searches by site or domain (e.g. to .gov for U.S. government websites) can provide quick access to common sources of policy documents and reports. Wikipedia's list of country code top-level domains is helpful when searching for literature hosted by other national governments.
- By specifying file type it's possible to limit results to PDF files, which are common among grey literature documents. These are often otherwise difficult to find on organizations' websites.
- The last update field is especially helpful if you are looking for recent publications.
How do I analyze grey literature?
- AACODS ChecklistAACODS checklist is designed to enable evaluation and critical appraisal of grey literature. Stands for: Authority; Accuracy; Coverage; Objectivity; Date; Significance.
- Grey Matters: a practical tool for searching health-related grey literature (CADTH)From CADTH, the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, Grey Matters is a practical tool for searching health-related grey literature. The MS Word document covers a grey literature checklist, including national and international health technology assessment (HTA) web sites, drug and device regulatory agencies, clinical trial registries, health economics resources, Canadian health prevalence or incidence databases, and drug formulary web sites.
Water-specific grey literature
- UNICEF: Water and Sanitation PublicationsContains PDFs of reports related to water and sanitation. Contains more documents than those listed through the UNDCWS.
- WHO: Water Sanitation HealthSite contains free access to statistics, publications, and fact sheets.
- World Bank: Water and SanitationContains publications about water and sanitation that searchable by subtopics, keyword, country, plus other options.
- IRC WASH LibraryProvides direct access to over 40 years worth of WASH sector documents, including a large collection of grey literature. The collection is built around current themes of interest for the WASH sector.
- Water at the CDCCDC's water page with news, free resources, feature articles, data and statistics, podcasts, and health-e-cards.
- UN-Documentation Centre on Water and Sanitation (UNDCWS)UN repository for water and sanitation related publications produced by UN system agencies, programs, and initiatives.
Cancer-specific grey literature
- DHHS Report on CarcinogensList of carcinogenic substances with supplmental information on exposure and limits
- Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)Statistics, fact sheets, and data sets on cancer
What is grey literature?
- Government and non-governmental organization reports and documents
- Conference proceedings
- Theses
- Subject matter experts
- Interviews
Searching the grey literature is important in public health, because not all evidence is available in peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles.