Criteria Used for Inclusion of Evidence-Based Public Health Resources on This Site

All Resources

  • Content is related to one or more of the knowledge domains of public health.
  • Content is accurate, well-organized, and easy to use.
  • Links are maintained and consistently available.
  • Information is current or an update date is included on the site.
  • The producer of the website is clearly identified and from a reputable source: produced under the auspices of relevant professional associations; public or nonprofit organizations; educational institutions; government agencies at the national, regional, or local level; or healthcare organizations or plans.
  • The aims and financial support of the website's producers are clearly identified.
  • The primary purpose of the website is to provide information and not to sell a commercial product or service.

Evidence-Based Guidelines

  • Based on systematic review of the research evidence.
  • Includes recommendations for practice.

Systematic Reviews

  • Use of explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria to select scientific studies for review.
  • Use of critical appraisal of individual studies.

Best Practices (Experience-Based)

  • Programs, interventions, policies, or projects that through experience have been evaluated and shown to be successful.
  • A best practice should have measurable outcomes and have the potential to be adapted and transformed.

Public Health Bibliographic Databases

  • From one or more of the following sources: schools of public health library websites; recommendations from health science librarians and public health subject experts; selected public health resources; and publications that index or abstract articles from the American Journal of Public Health, the Annual Review of Public Health, and the American Journal of Epidemiology.
  • Materials indexed include journal articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, systematic reviews, guidelines, dissertations, trade magazine articles, research reports, newspaper articles, conference papers and proceedings, commentaries, government documents, brochures and pamphlets, information packages, fact sheets, manuals, policy and legal documents, editorials, letters, videos, and images.

Public Health Journals

  • From one or more of the following sources: 1) a list of the most frequently requested journals through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Information Center's Document Delivery Service; 2) the most frequently cited journals from pre-formulated search strategies of the Healthy People 2010 Information Access Project; 3) journals from the Core Public Health Journal Project; 4) the top 25 journals by impact factor from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)'s Journal Citation Reports Science and Social Science Editions (2001-2002); and 5) recommendations from public health subject experts and librarians.