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Locating Health-Related Internet Sites Using the VRL

How to Search the VRL for Health-Related Information

There are several ways to explore the VRL:

A) Use the Keyword Search:

The quickest way to navigate the VRL is to use the Keyword Search.

• A link to this search screen appears near the top right of every Subject Guide screen on the VRL (just below the yellow heading banner).
  
• Keywords are drawn from the title, publisher, or description of the web site (as assigned by VRL staff).
  
  

Basic Keyword Search:

1. Enter up to five words describing your topic into the search box on the Keyword Search screen.

• For example, enter the two words breast cancer to locate web sites having these two words in their title, publisher's name, or in the description of the site.
  
  

NOTE: For in-depth research you may want to try a less restricted search. For example, a keyword search using the word cancer alone will locate all the cancer-related sites currently on the VRL. Most of the general cancer sites will provide information about breast cancer.

2. Then click the green Search button to the right of the box. A list of relevant web sites will be presented, up to 20 results per screen. Click on the blue web address to go to a site.

NOTE: You must press the Search button; hitting the Enter key will not activate the search.

3. The three radio buttons immediately below the search box control how the search is done. If you do not click one of these 3 buttons, the All Words option will be employed by default.

• All Words: will find sites containing all the keywords that you enter into the search box (e.g., breast AND cancer).
  
  
• Any Words: will find sites containing either of the keywords entered (e.g., diabetes OR children). This type of search usually locates many irrelevant sites. In this example 191 sites were retrieved, most of which were non-health sites for or about children. A better strategy would have been to search for the term diabetes alone (to locate general diabetes sites, most of which will have a section about diabetes in children). Another strategy would be to do an All Words search for diabetes children, or a Phrase search for juvenile diabetes.
  
  
• Phrase: will find sites containing the exact phrase entered. For example: enter canadian medical association into the search box, click the Phrase radio button, then click the green Search button. Only VRL-selected sites containing those exact words, in that order, will be retrieved. Note that capitalization is not necessary.
  
  

To read more about how to use the VRL's Keyword Search feature (including the Advanced Search features) go to:

B) Use the Subject Guide:

Under the heading Health and Medicine you will find links to hundreds of web sites, arranged by topic. These sites have been selected by staff of the Consumer Health Information Service (CHIS) to represent reliable sources of health-related information.

You may follow through the levels of the Subject Guide, proceeding to ever more specific topics. For example, if you were looking for information on diabetes, you would follow this path:

1. Start with the main category Health and Medicine.

2. From that list, choose the sub-category Diseases, Disorders and Conditions.

3. From the list of topics presented in that sub-category, choose Hormonal and Gland Disorders.

4. Under Hormonal and Gland Disorders, choose the heading Diabetes.

5. You will be presented with a list of web sites about diabetes. Click on the web address, in blue text, to open a new window displaying the chosen site.

You may return to any previous level of the subject guide by clicking on that heading in the string of category names appearing in blue text near the top of your screen. For the search described above, this string would appear:

Top:Health and Medicine:Diseases, Disorders and Conditions:Hormonal and Gland Disorders:Diabetes:

If you clicked on Health and Medicine in this string, you would be taken directly back to that page of the subject guide.

To read more about how to use the VRL's Subject Guide go to:

C) Use the A-Z List of Health-Related Topics:

An alphabetical list of health-related subjects is available under the Health and Medicine heading on the VRL. Each subject is represented by a selection of recommended Internet sites.

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