Welch Medical Library Guides: Global Health Resources: Open Access Literature Databases

Open Access Databases for Internationally-Produced Literature

Eldis This link opens in a new window
Browse more than 26,000 summarized documents from over 7,500 development organizations - all available free to download.
Global Index Medicus This link opens in a new window
Access to a variety of international sources including the WHO regional indexes (AIM, IMEMR, IMSEAR, LILACS, and WPRO).
African Index Medicus (AIM) This link opens in a new window
IMEMR This link opens in a new window
A cumulative index, covering the period 1987-1990, to over 9000 articles in the health sciences published by journals within the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region. By documenting key bibliographic data for these articles, the index aims to increase awareness of research being conducted in this region and thus improve knowledge about the region's health problems as depicted in its local health literature.

IMSEAR - Index Medicus for South-East Asia Region

IndMED This link opens in a new window
A database covering prominent peer reviewed Indian biomedical journals.
LILACS This link opens in a new window
Health science literature published by Latin American and Caribbean authors.

WPRIM - Western Pacific Region Index Medicus
Scielo - Scientific Electronic Library Online
Open access. 1,166 scientific journals from Latin American countries.

Virtual Health Library This link opens in a new window
A tool developed by the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information, also known by its original name, the Regional Library of Medicine (BIREME, the acronym in Portuguese). BIREME is a specialized center of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO).

Grey Literature

Grey literature is information produced by government agencies, academic institutions, and the for-profit sector that is not made available by commercial publishers.

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE)
BASE is a search engine primarily for academic open access web resources. A resource of over 2600 academic open access repositories, BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library (Germany). Initial search results are organized by relevancy with tools to further refine searches. The search results citations include links to the full-text documents.

Global Health Observatory (GHO) This link opens in a new window
The Global Health Observatory theme pages provide data and analyses on global health priorities. Each theme page provides information on global situation and trends highlights, using core indicators, database views, major publications and links to relevant web pages on the theme. The WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS) has been incorporated into the Global Health Observatory (GHO) to provide you with more data, more tools, more analysis and more reports.
Grey Literature Report This link opens in a new window
The Grey Literature Report is a bimonthly publication of The New York Academy of Medicine Library alerting readers to new grey literature publications in health services research and selected public health topics.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).

OAIster This link opens in a new window

OpenDOAR
This resource is a directory of over 2600 academic open access repositories. The directory is run by the Centre for Research communications (CRC), University of Nottingham. Links to various resources are listed on the Country and Organizations access page. Also available is a Search Repository Contents page. These search results include links to the full-text documents.

OpenGrey This link opens in a new window
OpenGrey (Formerly known as OpenSIGLE) is a free database of bibliographical references of reports and other grey literature produced in Europe. Topics include environmental pollution, social sciences, and biological & medical sciences.
USAID DEC This link opens in a new window
USAID's Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC) is the largest online resource for USAID funded technical and program documentation, with over 150,000 documents available for electronic download. Search USAID's online database of agency-funded technical and program-related documents to download for free.

WorldWideScience
This is a global science gateway comprised of national and international scientific databases and portals that, for a keyword search, examines 99 sources. A multilateral partnership, the project was developed and is maintained by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, Department of Energy (USA). Search results are organized into papers, multimedia and data sections.

Clinical Trial Registries

ClinicalTrials.gov
ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world.
WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP)
The mission of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTR) is to ensure that a complete view of research is accessible to all those involved in health care decision making. This will improve research transparency and will ultimately strengthen the validity and value of the scientific evidence base.