Many searchers think of the Current Contents database as the best answer to this question. However, this is no longer true for the journals that M. D. Anderson reads with the greatest frequency.

The Research Medical Library recently conducted a small study using articles published during the last 12 months in 15 of our most popular online journals (listed below). In all instances (n=156), the citations appeared in PubMed before they appeared in Current Contents. For 13 of the journals examined, citations appeared in PubMed approximately 1-3 weeks earlier than they appeared in Current Contents. For the remaining 2 journals, the time difference was greater.

Primary reasons that searchers can find newly published scientific literature in PubMed before they can find it in Current Contents include the following:

• Many publishers submit citations and abstracts for new publications electronically to the National Library of Medicine (NLM). NLM generally adds new information for each item to PubMed within 24 hours in the form of an “in-process” database record and then continues to complete the record over time. In many other databases, such as Current Contents, the database providers add a record to the database only after all of the record’s in-processing has been completed.
   
• Several publishers make some information available online as electronic publications before the information is available in print. NLM adds citations for electronic publications to PubMed and identifies them with the tag Epub ahead of print. These citations will also not be found in Current Contents until after the date that they appear in PubMed.

If you frequently search Current Contents for new information or have alerts saved in Current Contents that send you new information by email, you may want to change to PubMed or Ovid MEDLINE. Contact the Research Medical Library (713-792-2282 or RML-Help@mdanderson.org) if you would like assistance or have questions.

The journals studied were the following: Blood, Cancer, Cancer Cell, Cancer Research, Cell, Clinical Cancer Research, International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, JAMA, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Reviews Cancer, New England Journal of Medicine, Oncogene, and Science.

Finding the best statistics to use with publications, presentations, and grant proposals can be challenging. When the needed statistics are cancer-related, searchers often go first to the annual Cancer Statistics article published by the American Cancer Society in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. You can access the 2006 article online at the following URL: http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/reprint/56/2/106.

An additional resource that can be very helpful when searching for health statistics is the Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce Web site. The organization, comprised of major government agencies, public health organizations, and health science libraries, aims to make public health resources easier to find and use. Members include the following:

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
• American Public Health Association (APHA)
• Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Medical Library Association (MLA)
• National Library of Medicine (NLM)

The Health Data Tools and Statistics section of the Partners’ Web site (http://phpartners.org/health_stats.html) gathers links to a large number of online health statistics resources and organizes them into major categories such as Health Statistics, National Public Health Data Sets, State and Local Public Health Data Sets, and Public Health Infrastructure Data.

Examples of the types of links users can find within these major categories include the following:

• Finding and Using Health Statistics: A Self-Study Course
• Surveillance Research: Where can I find cancer incidence statistics?
• The Healthcare Cost & Utilization Project (HCUP)
• Profiles of America (socioeconomic data that users can manipulate)
• CHARTing Health Information for Texas (socio-demographic data for Texas communities and the state as a whole)
• National Women’s Health Indicators Database
• Public Health Expenditures

To learn more about this collaborative organization, go to http://phpartners.org/about.html. In addition to links for health statistics, the Web site also provides information on public health education and training, grants and funding, and legislation and policy.

For comments or to subscribe to the email version of NewsBytes, please contact:

Greg Pratt - Education / Reference
Direct Line: 713-745-5156
Email: gfpratt@mdanderson.org
Room: Y2.5809E