Health and medicine research spans an exceptionally wide range of disciplines — from biomedical science and clinical medicine to public health, health policy, epidemiology, health economics, and the social and behavioral determinants of health. A research paper in this field might require peer-reviewed clinical studies from medical journals, epidemiological data from government surveillance systems, clinical trial results from registries, policy analyses from health think tanks, or statistical data on health outcomes, disparities, and spending. The evidentiary standards in health research are particularly rigorous because the findings can directly influence clinical practice, policy decisions, and patient outcomes. This guide, part of iResearchNet’s How to Do Research series, covers the databases, government data sources, evidence synthesis tools, and research methods that U.S. college and university students need for research papers on health and medicine. For topic ideas, see iResearchNet’s Health Research Paper Topics.
Academic Databases for Health and Medicine
PubMed and MEDLINE
PubMed, maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health, is the single most important database for health and medical research and should be the starting point for any research paper in this field. PubMed provides free access to more than 36 million citations and abstracts from MEDLINE (the NLM’s premier bibliographic database), life science journals, and online books. MEDLINE uses the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) controlled vocabulary to index articles by standardized terms, which allows students to search with a precision that keyword searching alone cannot achieve. A student researching diabetes management, for instance, can search the MeSH heading “Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/therapy” to retrieve articles classified specifically under that heading, filtering out the thousands of articles that mention diabetes in other contexts.
PubMed provides several features that are particularly useful for research papers. The “Related Articles” function identifies studies similar to one the student has already found relevant. The “Cited by” function shows subsequent articles that have cited a given study. PubMed Central (PMC) provides free full-text access to a growing archive of biomedical and life sciences literature — when an article is available in PMC, PubMed links directly to the full text at no cost. Students whose universities subscribe to medical journals through library databases can also access full text through their library’s link resolver.
Additional Databases
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) covers nursing, allied health, biomedicine, and consumer health, and is the primary database for nursing research — see also iResearchNet’s guide to nursing research. PsycINFO covers behavioral health, mental health, health psychology, and the psychological dimensions of illness and treatment. Embase (Elsevier) provides coverage of biomedical and pharmacological literature with particular strength in drug research, pharmacology, and international medical literature. Cochrane Library provides the most authoritative collection of systematic reviews in health care and is an essential resource for evidence-based medicine (discussed below). Google Scholar provides broad indexing and citation tracking; students should configure Library Links to connect it to their university’s subscriptions.
Global Health (EBSCO/CABI) covers international public health, tropical medicine, and health in low- and middle-income countries. JSTOR archives runs of major medical and public health journals and is useful for historical and foundational research.
Government Data Sources
U.S. federal agencies produce an enormous body of health data that serves as the empirical foundation for much health research.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the nation’s primary public health agency, and its data systems are essential for research on disease prevalence, mortality, risk factors, health behaviors, and public health interventions. Major CDC data systems include:
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) produces the nation’s most widely cited health statistics, including the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which provides data on health conditions, access to care, and health behaviors; the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which combines interview data with physical examinations and laboratory tests; and the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), which provides data on births, deaths, and causes of death.
WONDER (Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research) is the CDC’s primary public-access data portal, providing access to mortality data, natality data, cancer statistics, environmental data, and population estimates. Students can generate custom tables and download data for analysis.
The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is the world’s largest continuously conducted health survey, collecting data on health behaviors, chronic conditions, and use of preventive services from more than 400,000 U.S. adults annually. BRFSS data is available at the state and metropolitan level, making it essential for research papers with a geographic focus on health behaviors or disparities.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary federal agency for biomedical and public health research. While NIH’s primary function is funding research rather than collecting data, several NIH resources are directly useful for student researchers. ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry of more than 450,000 clinical trials conducted in the United States and internationally, providing information on trial design, eligibility criteria, outcomes, and (for completed trials) results summaries. NIH RePORTER provides information on NIH-funded research projects, allowing students to identify active researchers and funded projects in their area of interest.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) maintains the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, which provides cancer incidence and survival data — the standard data source for cancer epidemiology research in the United States.
Additional Government Sources
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) produces research on health care quality, safety, access, and costs. AHRQ’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) provides data on hospital stays, emergency department visits, and ambulatory surgery. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes data on Medicare and Medicaid enrollment, spending, and quality measures. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) provides data on health workforce, underserved areas, and federally funded health centers.
For international health data, the World Health Organization (WHO) provides global health statistics, disease surveillance data, and health system profiles. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington produces the Global Burden of Disease study, the most detailed quantification of health loss from diseases, injuries, and risk factors worldwide.
Evidence-Based Medicine and Systematic Reviews
Health and medicine research operates within an explicit hierarchy of evidence that students should understand. At the top of the hierarchy are systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which synthesize the results of multiple studies to produce a summary estimate of an intervention’s effectiveness. Below systematic reviews are randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which are considered the gold standard for evaluating whether a treatment or intervention causes a specific outcome. Below RCTs are observational studies — cohort studies, case-control studies, and cross-sectional studies — which can identify associations but cannot establish causation as definitively as RCTs. At the bottom are case reports, expert opinion, and mechanistic reasoning.
Cochrane Library
The Cochrane Library is the premier source of systematic reviews in health care. Cochrane reviews follow a standardized, transparent methodology — pre-registered protocols, exhaustive literature searches, explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria, quality assessment of included studies, and statistical pooling of results when appropriate — that represents the highest standard of evidence synthesis in medicine. For any research paper that asks whether a particular treatment, intervention, or diagnostic procedure is effective, checking the Cochrane Library for a relevant systematic review should be among the first steps. Many Cochrane reviews are accessible in full text at no cost.
Additional Evidence Synthesis Resources
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) evaluates evidence on clinical preventive services (screening tests, counseling, and preventive medications) and issues recommendation grades based on the strength of the evidence. AHRQ’s Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) program produces systematic reviews on a wide range of clinical topics. These evidence syntheses are particularly valuable for research papers on clinical effectiveness, health policy, and preventive medicine.
Key Journals in Health and Medicine
The leading general medical journals — the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), The Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the BMJ (British Medical Journal) — publish the highest-impact clinical research and are among the most widely cited journals in any field. PLOS Medicine and Nature Medicine publish open-access and translational research, respectively.
For public health, the American Journal of Public Health, the American Journal of Epidemiology, Epidemiology, and the Annual Review of Public Health are the leading journals. For health policy, Health Affairs is the most influential U.S. journal, publishing research and analysis on health policy, spending, access, and quality. The Milbank Quarterly and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law provide additional policy-oriented scholarship.
Specialty journals serve particular clinical and research areas. Circulation (cardiology), Journal of Clinical Oncology (cancer), Diabetes Care (diabetes), The American Journal of Psychiatry (psychiatry), and Pediatrics (child health) are among the top journals in their respective fields. Students should identify the leading journals in their specific topic area and should prioritize peer-reviewed clinical and epidemiological research over general health information websites.
Research Methods in Health and Medicine
Quantitative Approaches
Quantitative research dominates medical and public health scholarship. The major study designs include randomized controlled trials (participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups), cohort studies (groups with and without an exposure are followed over time to compare outcomes), case-control studies (individuals with and without a disease are compared to identify prior exposures), cross-sectional studies (a population is surveyed at a single point in time to measure prevalence and associations), and ecological studies (aggregate data for populations rather than individuals is analyzed). Each design has specific strengths and limitations for establishing causal relationships, and students should be able to identify the study design of sources they cite and to discuss how the design affects the strength of the conclusions.
Qualitative Approaches
Qualitative methods — in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnographic observation, and narrative analysis — are increasingly recognized as essential complements to quantitative research in health. Qualitative studies examine patient experiences, provider perspectives, barriers to care access, cultural factors influencing health behavior, and the implementation of health programs in real-world settings. Journals like Qualitative Health Research, Social Science & Medicine, and BMC Health Services Research regularly publish qualitative health studies.
Evaluating Health Information Sources
Students writing health research papers should be particularly vigilant about source quality because health misinformation can have real-world consequences. Peer-reviewed journals indexed in PubMed should be the primary source of evidence. Government agencies (CDC, NIH, WHO) provide authoritative public health information. Professional medical associations — the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Public Health Association (APHA), and specialty societies — publish guidelines and position statements grounded in evidence review.
Sources that students should treat with caution include health news coverage (which may oversimplify or sensationalize findings), individual physician or practitioner websites (which may reflect personal opinion rather than evidence-based consensus), supplement and alternative medicine promotional sites (which may make claims unsupported by clinical evidence), and social media health content (which is frequently inaccurate). When in doubt, students should check whether claims are supported by peer-reviewed research indexed in PubMed and whether the conclusions align with systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines.
Health Disparities and Social Determinants of Health
A growing body of research examines how social, economic, and environmental factors — collectively known as the social determinants of health — influence health outcomes across populations. Research papers on health disparities, health equity, and the social determinants of health require data sources that go beyond clinical and biomedical databases.
The CDC’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity publishes data and reports on racial and ethnic health disparities. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality produces the annual National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, which tracks progress on health care quality and equity. The Kaiser Family Foundation publishes data and analysis on health coverage, access, and disparities, with particular attention to Medicaid, the uninsured, and racial and ethnic health gaps.
For research papers examining how factors such as income, education, housing, and neighborhood environment affect health, the CDC’s Social Determinants of Health data and the County Health Rankings (a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute) provide county-level data on health outcomes and the social and economic factors that influence them. These resources allow students to analyze geographic variation in health outcomes and to identify the community-level factors that contribute to health disparities.
The interdisciplinary nature of social determinants research means that relevant scholarship appears not only in public health journals but also in economics journals (Journal of Health Economics), sociology journals (Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Health and Social Behavior), and policy journals (Health Affairs). Students researching health disparities should search across multiple databases to capture the full scope of the relevant literature.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best database for health and medicine research?
PubMed is the field’s primary database and should be the starting point for any health or medical research paper. It is freely accessible, indexes more than 36 million citations, and provides MeSH-based searching that produces more precise results than keyword searching alone. For nursing topics, CINAHL complements PubMed with nursing-specific coverage. For evidence synthesis, the Cochrane Library is indispensable.
How do I find data on a specific disease or health condition?
The CDC’s WONDER portal provides mortality, natality, and disease-specific data. The NCI’s SEER program provides cancer incidence and survival data. The Global Burden of Disease project provides disease-specific data globally. For clinical trial results, ClinicalTrials.gov provides outcomes data for completed trials. PubMed searches using MeSH terms for the specific condition combined with “epidemiology” or “prevalence” will surface the most relevant published studies.
How do I know if a medical study is reliable?
The reliability of a medical study depends on its design, sample size, methodology, and publication venue. Randomized controlled trials published in peer-reviewed journals with clear methodology sections, adequate sample sizes, and transparent reporting of results are the most reliable individual studies. Systematic reviews that synthesize multiple studies provide even stronger evidence. Students should check whether a study has been replicated, whether its findings are consistent with systematic reviews, and whether the journal in which it appears is indexed in PubMed. The CONSORT statement (for randomized trials) and the STROBE statement (for observational studies) provide checklists that students can use to evaluate the reporting quality of published studies.
Can I cite WebMD or Mayo Clinic’s website in my research paper?
Health information websites maintained by recognized medical institutions — the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and MedlinePlus (maintained by the NLM) — provide accurate consumer health information but are not primary research sources. They summarize and simplify findings from the medical literature for a general audience. In a research paper, students should cite the original peer-reviewed studies rather than the consumer-facing summaries. These websites can be useful for initial orientation to a topic but should not appear as primary sources in the bibliography of an academic paper.
Related Pages
- How to Do Research — Overview of research methods and discipline-specific guides
- How to Do Research on Nursing — Databases and methods for nursing research
- How to Do Library Research — Using catalogs, databases, and librarian expertise
- Health Research Paper Topics — Topic ideas for health and medicine papers
- How to Write a Research Paper — Complete step-by-step guide