PubMed is one of the largest biomedical databases available (created by the National Library of Medicine in the US). It gives bibliographic access to the contents of journals, and you can search by author, subject headings and keywords.
Some subject headings to search in PubMed:
You can explode these terms or select individual headings from their tree.
Combine these terms with your subject:
eg myocardial infarction AND vital statistics
or
search your Thesaurus term and add a subheading such as:
Then combine your term with the Subject heading Nova Scotia. If you decide to broaden your search for data to include all of Canada, remember to search for Canada in the thesaurus and 'explode' the term (this will encompass all the provinces and territories).
Google (or another search engine of your choice) is often a good tool for finding health statistics.
For example, if you are looking for statistics on the use of illegal IV drug use in Canada, you could search in Google for the following:
Canada | statistics | "injection drug use" |
Remember a few things about Google searching:
Go to Google's Advanced Search page
Many statistical reports are listed in Novanet. Use the following Subject Headings to find them:
Health surveys - Canada (or Nova Scotia) | Vital statistics - Canada (or Nova Scotia) |
Morbidity - Canada (or Nova Scotia) | Mortality - Canada (or Nova Scotia) |
Public health - Canada | Health status indicators - Canada |
Or you can search by a specific topic or disease in Novanet such as:
Tuberculosis - epidemiology - Canada | Tuberculosis - mortality - Canada |
Cardiovascular diseases - epidemiology - Canada | Cardiovascular diseases - mortality - Canada |
Neoplasms - epidemiology - Canada | Neoplasms - mortality - Canada |
Indians, North American - statistics & numerical data - Canada | Disabled Persons - statistics & numerical data - Canada |
Heart Diseases - epidemiology - Canada | Heart Diseases - mortality - Canada |
Accidents, Traffic - statistics & numerical data - Canada | Indigenous peoples - Canada - statistics (LCSH) |