Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
APHA Week Nov 6-9: No librarians
What! Yes, it’s true. The Public Health librarians will *all* be gone from Nov 6-9. We apologize for any interruptions to your work that this might cause. Please plan ahead for any literature requests that you anticipate needing.
Our document delivery department, however, will be open and processing your article and books requests during this time.
The Public Health Library will be closed on November 10 to observe Veterans Day.
Our usual services will resume Monday, November 13.
Professional Development: Statistics in Medicine, a Free Online Class
Do you need to learn how to read and interpret statistics in medical literature? Or are you looking for a refresher on critically evaluating statistics in medical studies? If so, then this course offered by Stanford Online might be of interest to you.
The course focuses on real examples from the medical literature and popular press. Each unit starts with teasers, such as: Should I be worried about lead in lipstick? Should I play the lottery when the jackpot reaches half-a-billion dollars? You will work your way back from the news coverage to the original study and then to the underlying data.
The course will also prepare you to be able to analyze your own data, guiding you on how to choose the correct statistical test and how to avoid common statistical pitfalls. Optional modules cover advanced math topics and basic data analysis in R.
Statistics in Medicine is a free self-paced course that is divided into 9 learning units. Each unit contains videos, quizzes, and a homework assignment with a multiple-choice final exam at the end. Once you have completed the course, you will be able to request a Statement of Accomplishment if you have earned at least 60% on the graded assignments.
Unit 1 – Descriptive statistics and looking at data
Unit 2 – Review of study designs; measures of disease risk and association
Unit 3 – Probability, Bayes’ Rule, Diagnostic Testing
Unit 4 – Probability distributions
Unit 5 – Statistical inference (confidence intervals and hypothesis testing)
Unit 6 – P-value pitfalls; types I and type II error; statistical power; overview of statistical tests
Unit 7 – Tests for comparing groups (unadjusted); introduction to survival analysis
Unit 8 – Regression analysis; linear correlation and regression
Unit 9 – Logistic regression and Cox regression
Prerequisites
Participants will need to be familiar with a few basic math tools: summation sign, factorial, natural log, exponential, and the equation of a line; a brief tutorial is available on the course website for participants who need a refresher on these topics.
New Material Added to ToxTutor, NLM’s Toxicology Tutorial Resource
Could you use a toxicology refresher? Do you prefer some visual elements in your online learning such as illustrations and animations? Then this self-paced tutorial from the National Library of Medicine may be of interest to you!
You may use ToxTutor to explore the fundamental principles of toxicology, which will give you a basic understanding of the subject. To complement this, the National Library of Medicine has added new material to its basic online version. The new sections cover Basic Physiology, Introduction to Toxicokinetics, Absorption, Distribution, Biotransformation, Excretion, and Cellular Toxicology. New animations were created including From a Gel to a Cell, which follows the journey of a chemical from a theoretical shower gel product through several membranes and ultimately into a cell. The tutorial also has a glossary of more than 300 toxicology-related terms.
After completing the course, you can obtain a certificate of completion if wanted. Just complete the tutorial through NLM’s free learning management system.
Time required: about 3 hours
Cost: free
Certificate of Completion available
While a knowledge of anatomy and physiology is not required for viewing ToxTutor, the Introduction to the Human Body from the National Cancer Institute provides a good introduction to the topic.
Community Health Maps: Using Mapping Tools During Disasters: A webinar recording
Perhaps you’ve seen the way others use mapping in public health and wanted to try it yourself but are overwhelmed by the technology and/or simply too busy to pursue it. Or maybe you are already engaged in mapping but wish to enhance your community mapping initiatives with other tools. Now there’s a blog that was created to facilitate the use of GIS mapping for those that fall into these categories. This webinar, recorded on October 12, provides an overview of the tools available for you on the Community Health Maps blog and how they can be utilized during disaster response.
The Center for Public Service Communications and its partner Bird’s Eye View, together with the National Library of Medicine (NLM), have developed the Community Health Maps (CHM) initiative. The goal of this blog is to provide information about low cost mapping tools that can be used by community organizations.
The webinar discusses three GIS tools: Fulcrum for iOS and Android, QGIS for the desktop pc, and Carto which is a cloud-based platform. It also includes several case studies from around the country involving different populations so that you can see how these could be used.
Under its resources tab, the blog includes lab exercises to take you through the entire Community Health Mapping Workflow from field data collection through online data presentation. These are also available for you on YouTube.
This is a collaborative effort between the National Library of Medicine, the Center for Public Service Communications and Bird’s Eye View.
A New Way to Find, Browse, and Follow PubMed Journals
Want an easy way to keep up to date on the articles that are published in journals? The new PubMed Journals may help!
PubMed Journals lets you:
* Easily find and follow journals of interest
* Browse new articles in your favorite journals
* Keep up-to-date with a Journal News Feed containing new arrivals, news links, trending articles, and important article updates (retractions and more!)
Choose from 10 popular journals right on the home page. Or search for other titles of particular interest to you. Click on the Follow button, log in with your NCBI, eRA Commons, Google or NIH account and you’re ready to go! If you do not have an NCBI account, you can go to your CDPH PubMed page and click on Sign in to NCBI in the upper right corner to create an account. It’s free and easy.
See an article that you like that you can’t access? You can request it through your document delivery service.
PubMed Journals is an experiment of PubMed Labs, NCBIís product incubator for delivering new features and capabilities to NCBI end users.
New Books!
The Public Health Library has the following new books available in print:
1. Poison on tap: how government failed Flint, and the heroes who fought back. By the staff of Bridge Magazine; Poison on Tap editor: Bob Campbell.
Traverse City, MI: Mission Point Press, 2016.
Call number: TD370 .P65 2016
Read a description on the author’s website.
2. How to publish in biomedicine: 500 tips for success. By John Dixon, Louise Alder, and Jane Fraser. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2017.
Call number: R119 .D59 2017
See the table of contents and a short description at the publisher’s website.
3. Toxic safety: flame retardants, chemical controversies, and environmental health. By Alissa Cordner. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.
Call number: TD428.F57 C67 2016
See the table of contents, a description, reviews, and a sample chapter at the
publisher’s website.
and here are some new titles available online from the National Academies Press of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
4. Protecting the Health and Well-Being of Communities in a Changing Climate: Proceedings of a Workshop. 2017.
6. Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda. 2017.
Please note that these books are only a small selection of what is newly available. If you are interested in checking out any book(s), submit a request using our online form and we will mail the book(s) to you.
You may also log into your web portal account to request book(s).
If you do not currently possess a UC Berkeley library card, you will need to apply for one before we can check out a book to you.
Discover ToxNet in 4 weeks (or less)
Have you ever wanted to learn more effective ways to find information on environmental health or hazardous chemicals? Do you want to learn more about what’s available from the National Library of Medicine beyond PubMed? Then the free online class Discovering TOXNET may be of interest to you.
TOXNET is a web-based system of databases covering hazardous chemicals, environmental health, toxic releases, chemical nomenclature, poisoning, risk assessment and regulations, and occupational safety and health.
You will get the chance to explore TOXNET and other NLM environmental health databases through videos, guided tutorials, and discovery exercises. The class is taught online in thirteen independent modules.
The first module, Introduction to TOXNET, is required. The others are all optional. The optional modules cover TOXLINE, ChemIDplus, TRI, TOXMAP, Hazardous Substances Data Bank, IRIS, Haz-Map, LactMed, WISER, CHEMM, REMM, LiverTox, and more.
This class is designed for health or environmental sciences professionals and health sciences librarians interested in unlocking the information in TOXNET and the other environmental health and toxicology resources. You will work at your own pace with instructors available to answer questions and provide assistance.
Date: March 7th, 2016 – April 6th, 2016
Sponsor: National Library of Medicine Training Center
Professional Development: Data Analysis: Take It to the MAX
Do you struggle with data analysis? Have megabytes of sensor data to analyze? Are you looking for a smart way visualize your data in order to make sense out of it? Then this online class might be of interest to you!
You will start with a deep dive into data analysis with spreadsheets: PivotTables, VLOOKUPS, named ranges, what-if analyses, and making great graphs. After mastering spreadsheets, you will examine other ways to store and analyze data. You will also look into how Python, a programming language, can help you with analyzing and manipulating data in spreadsheets.
Length: 8 weeks; self-paced
Offered by: DelftX (online courses from Delft University of Technology)
Price: Free with option to add a Verified Certificate for $50
This class is taught with video lectures and hands-on exercises. Class assignments will be done primarily using Excel 2013 and Windows. Most assignments, however, can also be completed using another spreadsheet program and operating system, but DelftX cannot offer full support for all configurations.
PubMed Alternative Search Interfaces
We all know that PubMed has a very powerful search engine. Sometimes, however, it would be nice to have alternative ways to dig into the National Library of Medicine’s database to perhaps uncover other useful research articles.
Enter PubMed PubReMiner. PubReMiner will query PubMed with your specific search query, get all abstracts and generate frequency tables for you. Let’s take a look at these.
The first table will show you journals in which your query is published the most. The second table will show you the authors which are most active in the field of your query. The third table will show you words that have been used most in the title and abstract of the articles, perhaps uncovering new search terms to try.
In addition to all this, MESH headers, country, and the publication year are displayed. Clicking on any of the elements will add them to your query, and will then run the search again in PubReMiner, making sure that your refined search still generates results. When you are satisfied with the query, you can jump to PubMed and view the results.
Next to building efficient queries, PubReMiner can also be helpful in other areas:
* Selecting a journal for your current work by scanning the most often used journals of similar research
* Finding experts in a research area by viewing the authors associated with your query
* Creating a realtime CV on the fly when you have gathered all your publications with their CV generator
PubMed PubReMiner was developed by Jan Koster at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam.
Intrigued by this? For more alternative interfaces, see PubMed Alternative Interfaces, a list maintained by HLWIKI International which is curated by a team of international health librarians.
New MeSH terms for 2016
Finding the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) term for your search topic can often help you retrieve more relevant results and help ensure that you don’t miss articles.
MeSH is the National Library of Medicine controlled vocabulary thesaurus which is updated annually. NLM uses the MeSH thesaurus to index articles from thousands of biomedical journals for the MEDLINE/PubMed database.
For the 2016 update to its MeSh terms, the NLM added 438 descriptors and replaced 17 others with more up-to-date terminology. In addition, 9 descriptors and 1 qualifier were deleted.
Here are a few of the new 2016 terms for your perusal. They include some minor adjustments, and a few surprises.
* Biobehavioral Sciences
* Cloud Computing
* Cosmeceuticals
* Data Anonymization
* Farmers (previously indexed as Agriculture)
* Health Equity
* Hydraulic Fracking
* Infant Health (replacing Infant Welfare)
* Legendary Creatures
* Maternal Health (replacing Maternal Welfare)
* Nerve Agents (previously indexed as Organophosphorus Compounds)
* Open Access Publishing
* Smartphone
* Spatial Regression
* Spirit Possession
* Toxicological Phenomena
* Unsupervised Machine Learning
Remember that these MeSH are new for 2016, so they won’t have a lot of articles tagged with them just yet, and most are not retroactive.
The NLM has an online article that you can read to see the entire list and to learn more about changes in MeSH if you’d like.