Find public health definitions in journal articles-HEA 308

I don't have a libguide for this, the instructor hasn't shared any info w/me. The most recent student read assignment instructions to me over the phone, here's my paraphrase -

Find a definition for the following public health terms. You can use your textbook. You must also find an alternative description of the term from a valid and reliable source of information. Use your newfound information literacy skills. The best resources are journal articles. You may not use a dictionary or encyclopedia. You must use a variety of sources for your descriptions.

Examples of terms:

• Primary prevention
• Secondary prevention
• Tertiary prevention
• Potential Years of Life Lost
• Vital statistics
• Random variation

I'll continue pursuing the instructor for confirmation, but in the meantime

1. Discuss "valid and authoritative" with the student. At some point these students were told that sites in the .gov domain are authoritative. My quick fix is a Google search such as this - define primary prevention site:.gov

It leads to descriptions/definitions from gov websites, often public health pages.

I have no clue how that tactic will go over during grading.

2. Students determined to follow instructions and search for journal articles with definitions/descriptions? Refer them to me.

I've helped a student to find MeSH headings as one of the sources of alternate descriptions, and as a way to get to articles on those topics, then clicking on "Review" in hopes that review articles will be more obvious sources of defns, and of course pulling the info from an abstract where feasible.

Public health terms - HEA 308

FYI on an assignment that you might encounter...

I just spoke with an online HEA 308 student who has been asked to find definitions from two sources each for 44 different public health terms, for instance

• mortality
• years of potential life lost

One source for defns may be their textbook, but they must also find a defn from another source. The alternate source can't be a dictionary.

The instructions mention journal articles, but obviously that approach will be great effort/little yield.

The instructions mention that internet sources may be used, as long as the source is reliable (no info given about specific criteria). A quick Google search for something like define mortality site:.gov leads to authoritative pages listing definitions for many common public health terms, for instance Mortality Module Definitions, part of a site from the Wisconsin Department of Health Svcs.

If you work with one of these students and want a library source for a definition, try a health encyclopedia or e-book collection. The e-books page for public health has some suggestions. With this one student, I searched the R2 library for years of potential life lost - quickly found a definition from a public health book.

Thanks,
Lea