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* Public Health

Resources for students interested in public health related programs at the University of Rochester

Anatomy of a Literature Review Article

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Anatomy of an Empirical Research Article

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Identifying and Locating Empirical Research

Empirical research is conducted based on observed and measured phenomena and derives knowledge from actual experience, rather than from theory or belief. Empirical research articles are examples of primary research.

How do you know if a study is empirical?
Read the subheadings within the article, book, or report and look for a description of the research methodology.  Ask yourself: Could I recreate this study and test these results? The book/chapter summary or article abstract will often mention a study, observation, analysis, # of participants/subjects. Most often, empirical research is published as articles in scholarly journals.

Publication: The article is published in a scholarly journal. Empirical research is often (but not always) published in peer-reviewed academic journals. The article is substantial in size, likely to be more than 5 pages long.

Perspective: The author(s) discuss their own research, data collection and analysis, based on actual experience/observation rather than from theory.

Structure: The article contains the following sections (the exact terms may vary): abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, references. At least, it will have the following three sections:

  1. Methods - Describes the sample, methods of measure (quantitative or qualitative) & approach for analyzing the data gathered. Key characteristics to look for: Definition of the population, behavior, or phenomena being studied. Description of the process used to study this population or phenomena, including selection criteria, controls, and testing instruments (such as surveys).
  2. Results - analysis of the data gathered (could be narrative or in the form of tables, graphs or other visuals). The article includes charts, graphs, or statistical analysis.
  3. Conclusion/Discussion - Outlines the implications of the research

IDENTIFYING EMPIRICAL RESEARCH EXERCISE 

Directions: Skim through the following articles* and determine if they are empirical research articles. Be prepared to justify your decision.

Base your decision using the following criteria: 
    •    Structure: Does it have methodology, results, and conclusions?
    •    Publication: Is it published in a scholarly journal?
    •    Perspective: Is it about the author(s) own research?

Researchers from University of Airlangga Discuss Research in Health and Medicine (Enhancing maternal role achievement and breastfeeding success through health belief model intervention). (2024, April 18). Women's Health Weekly, 6209. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A790004939/CWI?u=nysl_ro_rochstru&sid=bookmark-CWI&xid=d2e9d238

Skouteris, H., Bailey, C., Nagle, C., Hauck, Y., Bruce, L., & Morris, H. (2017). Interventions designed to promote exclusive breastfeeding in high-income countries: a systematic review update. Breastfeeding Medicine, 12(10), 604-614. https://rochester.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ROCH_INST/173n3b8/cdi_proquest_journals_1976079779

Guttman, N., & Zimmerman, D. R. (2000). Low-income mothers' views on breastfeeding. Social science & medicine, 50(10), 1457-1473. https://rochester.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ROCH_INST/173n3b8/cdi_crossref_primary_10_1016_S0277_9536_99_00387_1

Schreck, P. K., Solem, K., Wright, T., Schulte, C., Ronnisch, K. J., & Szpunar, S. (2017). Both prenatal and postnatal interventions are needed to improve breastfeeding outcomes in a low-income population. Breastfeeding Medicine, 12(3), 142-148. https://rochester.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ROCH_INST/173n3b8/cdi_crossref_primary_10_1089_bfm_2016_0131

*If the article link does not work for you, try using this Citation Search Tool to locate the article or search for the title in DiscoverUR.

Tips for narrowing to a manageable results list when searching databases

1. Spend time brainstorming search terms.  Thinking about what words scholars use to talk about your topic will save you time in the long run.

2. Thesaurus - if the database has one, it can often help you find the right terms for your search.

3. Skim article titles and abstracts for the right terms - keep a running list of the terms scholars in this discipline use (then you can refer back and reuse them when you search in more than one database (see Reading strategies for vetting sources for close reading above for more).

4. Discover what subject headings are used for the concepts you're researching.  Search multiple subject headings using advanced search.  Use other limiters like limiting to only articles where certain terms are mentioned within article abstracts.

5. Use any exclusion criteria with NOT or the minus (-) symbol (e.g. if you're only interested in outpatient studies you could use NOT inpatient* to weed out studies that specifically mention inpatient populations).

6. Use citation tracking to follow research on a topic over time (see Citation Tracking: Finding articles by citation on the Articles tab of this guide).

7. Use Google Scholar search qualifiers "insubject", "intitle" and "intext" along with quotation marks and the boolean operators AND & OR.  (e.g. insubject:"heart rate variability" intitle:("systematic review" OR meta-analysis) intext:(child OR adolescent)

8. Use time limiters to look at smaller chunks of results during a particular time period. (e.g. looking at the most recent 5 years, then the next five years).

Note: If you’re looking for articles for a systematic review or meta-analysis, you’ll need to search multiple databases (e.g. PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, etc.) since no single database holds everything.  Each database will have different relevancy algorithms and may hold duplicate content. Though Google Scholar is poised to become the leading (possibly even a stand alone) bibliographic database for systematic reviews (Gehanno et al, 2013).

Gehanno JF, Rollin L, Darmoni S. (2013). Is the coverage of Google Scholar enough to be used alone for systematic reviews. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making,13(1), 7. doi: 10.1186/1472-6947-13-7

9. Use a reference manager to keep track of your sources.

10. See what others have done.  New to systematic reviews and meta-analysis and not sure what your objectives, exclusions, inclusions and other methods should be?  Take a look at what other protocols folks have used in:

The best way to export and manage large numbers of articles is with a citation manager. 

10. Feel free to schedule a research consultation with me.

Strategies for researching a country on public health issues

1. Brainstorming search terms 

One of the most important, and often overlooked, aspects of researching a topic, is figuring out what search terms to use. Think about each unique concept and the terms scholars might use to talk about each.  Each line below represents a unique concept for terms I'd use if research how Afghanistan is handling the COVID-19 outbreak, particularly for marginalized groups like refugees. 

          afghani* 
AND  COVID-19 OR sars-cov-2 OR “covid* response*” 
AND  refugees OR “displaced persons” 

Note: quotations marks around multiple words like "covid response" makes the database return results only when the whole phrase is used.  The asterisk (*)  tells the database to look for that root word with any ending.  Afghan* will find Afghan, Afghans, Afghani, and Afghanistan, Afghanistanis, etc.  For Google and Google Scholar searching, asterisks are not needed since multiple endings are automatically included in the search.  In Google or Google Scholar, the search would appear as afghanistan (COVID-19 OR sars-cov-2 OR “covid response”) (refugees OR “displaced persons”)

2.  Search for Scholarly Literature using the suggested resources  on the Research Resources Tab.  PubMed, LitCovid, and Google Scholar are best bets.

3. Search for News articles on your issue.  Find international and domestic news sources (like this example article) on the News Research Guide at libguides.lib.rochester.edu/news

4. Search for Grey Literature using these search tips.
Examples include:
        covid-19 afghanistan site:.org  
        (covid-19 OR coronavirus OR sars-cov-2) afghanistan site:.gov 
        covid-19 afghanistan site:who.int
        covid-19 (refugees OR "displaced persons") site:.af

This list of country code domains can help you greatly if your topic is relevant for countries outside of the United States.

5. Search for a country's background info and statistics using the Data Sets & Stats tab of this guide. Some useful sources for how Afghanistan and public health issues might include: