Information needs in public health and health policy: Results of recent studies
Information needs in public health and health policy: Results of recent studies
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DOI：
10.1007/bf02344508
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发表时间：
1998-12-01
影响因子：
6.6
通讯作者：
Selden, CR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
O'Carroll, PW;Cahn, MA;Selden, CR
结论显然，需要做大量的工作，以满足不同的，有时是独特的在线信息需求的公共卫生专业人员和卫生政策分析。在某些情况下，需要通过多个数据库之间的链接创建复杂的新知识库（例如，然而，在许多其他情况下，需要的是一种更系统的方式来收集所谓的灰色文献：政策文件、政府报告、立法摘要、行业团体出版物、最佳做法说明等。一般来说，这些灰色文献很少经过正式同行审查，大多数无法在线获得，几乎没有一个是可以通过像MEDLINE这样的可信数据库访问的。然而，这往往是实践为导向的文献，是最重要的公共卫生专业人员和卫生政策分析。需要新的系统，使这一庞大和不断增长的信息以索引良好、及时、相当全面但经过有意义的过滤的方式以电子方式获得。这种系统的发展对那些有兴趣确保卫生政策分析人员和公共卫生专业人员联机获得这种信息的人提出了新的和困难的挑战。
ConclusionClearly, much work needs to be done to address the diverse and sometimes unique on-line information needs of public health professionals and health policy analysts. In some cases, there are needs for complex new knowledge bases created via linkages among multiple databases (e.g., public health-relevant geographic information systems).However, in many other cases, what is needed is a more systematic way of capturing the so-called grey literature: policy documents, government reports, legislative summaries, industry group publications, descriptions of best practices, and so on. In general, very little of this grey literature is formally peer reviewed, most is not available on-line, and almost none of it is accessible through such trusted databases as MEDLINE. Yet, it is frequently this practice-oriented literature that is of most importance to public health professionals and health policy analysts. New systems are needed to make this large and growing body of information accessible electronically in a well-indexed, timely, reasonably comprehensive, yet meaningfully filtered, manner. The development of such systems presents new and difficult challenges to those interested in ensuring on-line access to such information for health policy analysts and public health professionals.