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HCAD 3360: Health Education and Promotion

This guide was created for Dr. Liwen Zeng's HCAD 3360 class.

Introduction to Health Education & Promotion Research

Take a moment to share your group topic on the Padlet below. Simply double-click on the page or click on the plus sign to post your topic. If you are still deciding on your topic, that's ok too! 

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Finding quality sources to inform your formative research 

The library's website and associated resources are a good place to start your research into various health education and intervention programs and health data. There's also a great deal of information on the open web. Here are some broad categories to help you get started in terms of places to look:

  • Library Quick Search - searches through all the library's resources, print, online, and media, and includes content that's normally inaccessible behind paywalls for the general public.
     
  • Library Databases - subscription services for specialized information, including content that is inaccessible to the general public, and only available through libraries. Go to the library's website to access these resources, and log in with your IslandID to use remotely.
     
  • Government & Health Agency Sites - There is a wealth of information on US federal government (and other NGO and government sites) freely accessible on the web.
     
  • Google Scholar - This version of Google features academic resources and many scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. Customize your Google Scholar settings to connect to the library's resources.
     
  • Google - Can find great resources, but be sure to use your lateral reading skills to fact-check information!

What's a keyword?

It's really important to distill your topic down into searchable keywords. You might need to change your keyword language or spelling, or use specific symbols or connecting words to combine keywords to get the best results.

BOOLEAN OPERATORS 

The three words that you can use to combine your search keywords most efficiently are: and, or, and not. Take a look at the image below to get a sense of how they work. 

  • AND tends to narrow searches because all words must be included in results.
  • OR tends to broaden searches because one or other terms (or all) can be present in results.
  • NOT selectively eliminates any results containing a specified word.

This image illustrates the effects of different boolean search operator examples: typing coffee and beans as keywords shows content with both words included, typing in party or celebration shows content with either word or both included, and typing in royal not caribbean will show content with the word royal but exclude content with the word caribbean in search results. Additionally three symbols are highlighted: using quotation marks to type in a search phrase like a book title will show results that contain that exact phrase, using parentheses to enclose a phrase works similarly to mathematics and the search engine will perform the boolean search surrounded by parentheses first; and lastly typing in part of a word and adding an asterisk will return all possible spelling variations in your search results.

Two symbols you can also use to further refine your search keywords are "quotation marks" and the asterisk *.

"Quotation marks" searches for groups of words together. This works best if you are looking for a title or phrase.

Some databases or library resources use parentheses () to group words instead, or in cases of complex searches, to tell the search engine which elements to process first.

The asterisk * is usually found above the number eight on most keyboards. Use the asterisk * to abbreviate words so you can find all possible spelling variations in your search results. It will also make your search results increase, typically.

The NURS 4660 Course guide has many useful links for finding health data. Here are several suggested places to find health data:

Dr. Zeng recommends Elicit, an AI Research Assistant gen AI tool, for various workflows related to this assignment. Sign up for a free Elicit account to use unlimited summaries and chat (up to 4 papers at once) and more. Upload papers to store in Elicit or connect your Zotero account to use these features.

If you aren't one of Dr. Liwen Zeng's HCAD 3360 students, check-in with your course instructor if you are unsure about their expectations about using AI tools in their classes to avoid violating any academic integrity rules!

Watch a short Youtube tutorial from Dr. Andy Stapleton demonstrating the basics of using Elicit for literature searches and reviews below:

Selected Library Resources & Websites

The library's website and associated resources are a good place to start searching, especially for content that you can't get access to on the open web. Here are some recommended places to begin your search:

LIBRARY QUICK SEARCH

Library Quick Search - searches through all the library's resources, print, online, and media, and includes content that's normally inaccessible behind paywalls for the general public. Use the search box below to access Quick Search or start at the library's homepage.

SELECTED LIBRARY DATABASES

Take a look at the selected professional databases and websites listed below. Or explore the entire Nursing and Health Sciences database list from the library's website.

Note: As a TAMUCC student you have access to library databases for a full year (365 days) after you graduate or leave TAMUCC.

SEARCH WEB SITES

Searching for content on the web. Google and Google Scholar are favorites, but you might want to consider other sites like USA.gov. PUBMED is listed as a library database but is an online site that's freely available on the web, too. 

Not all websites have been vetted - be sure to use lateral reading to fact-check information as you go!