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Global Public & Environmental Health

Suggested Subject Headings

Subject Headings vs. Keywords

Subject headings are very specific to a particular set of databases, or library catalogues. They are part of a controlled vocabulary, where a term is only used in a subject heading when the item is specifically about that term. Usually a person has assigned these terms based on their knowledge of what's in the book. For example, books with "Marriage" in their subject heading are mainly and specifically on the topic of Marriage.

Keywords are simply words that can appear anywhere in the title, subject heading, abstract or even full text of the article. If you search Marriage as a keyword, then you can locate books that mention marriage on a single page, or have a short chapter addressing Marriage.

MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings, which are specific Subject Headings developed by the National Library of Medicine and used in health/medical databases such as PubMed. These are more specific to medical issues, and may not be used in other databases. It can be helpful to look up related MeSH terms if you're going to spend a good deal of time searching PubMed. Other related medical subject heading collections are the International Classifications of Diseases (IDC-11) or the International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI).

Subject headings can narrow your search if your results are too broad. You can also combine keywords and subject headings in the advanced search in any database to narrow or broaden your results.

Colgate Libraries use the Library of Congress Subject Headings to organize our books, a system of controlled vocabulary created by the U.S. Library of Congress. These terms are used in libraries across the United States, but changing and updating the terms can take a very long time, through a complicated and political process. You may find that the subject heading terminology is outdated or even offensive or triggering. This list is not meant to be exhaustive.

Examples of subject headings:

Examples of Keywords: 

Use these terms along with the name of the country, region, or community to find relevant information. Use the quotation marks "" to force the database to search the words as a complete phrase. 

  • "historical dictionary"
  • Development
  • "human rights"
  • Peacekeeping
  • "Peace Building"
  • Government
  • Governance
  • "economic conditions"
  • "economic policy"
  • Agriculture
  • Labor
  • "politics and culture"
  • "politics and government"
  • "social conditions"
  • "social life and customs"
  • History

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