Searching Health Disparities Literature: Racial and Ethnic Minorities

Members of racial and ethnic minority groups frequently encounter obstacles to accessing quality healthcare and achieving positive health outcomes. Searching the literature for health disparities faced by these groups can be challenging due to underrepresentation and evolving vocabularies.

Recently, attempts have been made to make Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) more inclusive, using person-first language that acknowledges race as a social construct rather than a biological concept. It is important to become familiar with the language used in indexing, by authors, and by members of these groups to effectively search the literature. The tutorial below will examine building an effective search strategy for racial and ethnic minorities in the healthcare literature.