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Indigenous Health

Searching for Items

To find books and articles, a variety of search terms may be appropriate depending on the topic, type of resource, and database. For a guide concerning Indigenous research methods, data sovereignty and Indigenous research ethics, please consult the section of this guide labelled 'Indigenous Research Methods.'

Lists of key databases and journals for this topic can be found in the 'Databases' and 'Journals' section of this guide.

Tips for Searching

Search tips for the library catalogue

Quotes: if you are searching for a specific phrase, you can enclose the phrase in quotation marks. It will only return results that include that specific phrase, and not include related phrases or similar spellings.

"indigenous midwifery"

"Inuit medical statistics"

Boolean modifiers: words such as 'AND', 'OR,' and 'NOT' can be used to narrow down your search without the specificity of a direct phrase quote.

Entering a search of [nursing AND statistics AND métis] will return all results in the specific database that have each of those specific words contained within their text.

Entering a search of [nursing OR midwifery] will return results that have either the term 'nursing' or 'midwifery' in their text, but will exclude all sources that have both 'nursing' and 'midwifery' or neither of them.  

Entering a search of [indigenous NOT canada] will return all results that include the term 'indigenous' but not the term 'canada' in their text. It can be used to exclude irrelevant materal from your searches.

 
You can combine these to perform a complex search that includes some terms and excludes others, based on the rules set out here. 

"midwifery" AND "Indigenous birth" will return results with only the exact aforementioned phrases both in the text

Canadian indigenous statistics NOT "British Columbia" will return results about Canadian indigenous statistics that exclude anything with the specific text 'British Columbia'

Subject Headings: You may also retrieve catalogue records assigned this subject heading by the McGill database in your search. su:(Indigenous peoples—Health and hygiene—Research—Canada) will retrieve catalogue records assigned this subject heading.

 For more information, consult McGill's boolean tip sheet here or its Research Service Guide. For health sciences searches specifically, see here for McGill's Health Sciences Searching Basics. 

 

Key Books

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