POPULATION GROUPS - INDEXING, COVERAGE, AND RETRIEVAL EFFECTIVENESS OF ETHNICALLY RELATED HEALTH-CARE ISSUES IN HEALTH-SCIENCES DATABASES

Objectives: This study examined methods of accessing (for indexing and retrieval purposes) medical research On population groups in the majo r abstracting and indexing services of the health sciences literature. Design: The study of diseases in specific population groups is facili tated by the indexing of both diseases and populations in a database. The MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase databases were selected for the stud y. The published thesauri for these databases were examined to establi sh the vocabulary in use, Indexing terms were identified and examined as to their representation in the current literature. Terms were clust ered further into groups thought to reflect an end user's perspective and to facilitate subsequent analysis. The medical literature containe d in the three online databases was searched with both controlled voca bulary and natural language terms. Results: The three thesauri reveale d shallow pre-coordinated hierarchical structures, rather difficult-io -use terms for post-coordination, and a blurring of cultural, genetic, and racial facets of populations. Post-coordination is difficult beca use of the system-oriented terminology, which is intended mostly for i nformation professionals. The terminology unintentionally restricts ac cess by the end users who lack the knowledge needed to use the thesaur i effectively for information retrieval. Conclusions: Population group s are not represented adequately in the index languages of health scie nces databases. Users of these databases need to be alerted to the dif ficulties that may be encountered in se-arching for information on pop ulation groups. Information and health professionals may not be able t o access the literature if they are not familiar with the indexing pol icies,on population groups. Consequently, the study points to a proble m that needs to be addressed, through either the redesign of existing systems or the design of new ones-to meet the goals of Healthy People 2000 and beyond.