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If you need help, please contact Hazel Plante, Liaison Librarian at 778.782.4173 or hazel_plante@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Getting started is often the hardest part.  See Start Your Research Here for some great tips.

Finding books

You can use the Library Catalogue to find print and online books on your chronic disease. After doing a keyword search for books in the Library Catalogue, you can click on the Subject Headings (near the bottom of the record) to find similar materials. 

Here are some examples of subject headings in the Catalogue:

  • Cerebrovascular Disease
  • Colon (Anatomy) - Cancer 
  • Coronary Heart Disease
  • Diabetes
  • Liver - cancer 
  • Hypertension
  • Heart - diseases 
  • Rectum - cancer 

Note: Some of these broader subject headings will also have narrower headings on specific aspects of the chronic disease. For example, there are also subject headings on the following aspects of diabetes: diet therapy, exercise therapy, prevention, and treatment. 

Finding articles

You can find journal articles by using the databases in SFU Library's collection.

Here are few brief videos created by SFU Library to show how to locate and navigate databases: 

Here are a few specific databases that may be useful for finding scholarly articles for your assignment: 

PubMed /MEDLINE
Includes over 26 million citations for biomedical and life sciences literature.
Note: You can use MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) to search it for articles by topic, rather than doing keyword searches. The easiest way to try doing this is watching a brief (3 min) video called "Use MeSH to Build a Better PubMed Query" or to follow the tutorial by National Library of Medicine. 

Web of Science 
A large interdisciplinary science-centric database. 

Google Scholar
A database that includes some grey literature. Doesn't allow for useful advanced searching. Always access it via SFU Library; otherwise, you'll often be asked to pay for content. (Never pay for content! Get it through us -- for free!) 

CINAHL Complete
A database focused on the fields of nursing and allied health.

Global Health
A public health database focused on international health. 

Finding additional information

For some aspects of your project, you may not be able to find answers in books or journal articles. You may need to use grey literature (such as government and NGO reports) and other sources. The credibility of online documents can be difficult to evaluate, so SFU Library has created a guide on Finding and Evaluating Resources to make it easier to determine whether or not sources are credible.  

Here are a few resources that may be helpful for locating some of the information related to your topic:

WHO (World Health Organization)
Browse by health topic or by country. 

CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Browse by disease and condition. 

PHAC (Public Health Agency of Canada) 
Includes a section on chronic diseases. 

You will be able to locate additional information on your individual chronic diseases and countries in government documents, NGO reports, and other grey literature. As mentioned at the start of this section, remember to pay close attention to the credibility of the sources you are using.

Keep in mind that not all information is available or findable. You may need to find similar information on your particular disease (e.g., for a different geography) and evaluate the context/culture/etc. of the information to decide whether it's relevant to your topic.    

Writing and citing 

For help with writing your assignments, check out the Student Learning Commons; they offer workshops, one-to-one consultations, and a variety of handouts on writing and study tips.

The Library has an APA citation style guide, which shows the format for citing your sources. If you have questions about research and/or citing, feel free to ask a librarian.