Web Based Health Information for Developing and Transitional Countries

This list is a compilation of several of the principal Internet websites that are sources of health information for users in developing and transitional countries. While not all the sites are geared for this environment, they contain relevant information from reliable, up-to-date and free sources.

The links range from gateways to search engines and fulltext portals. They are representative of the types of material that are available electronically. For a more extensive listing, see the ‘ INASP Health Links ' gateway that is listed below. This site is the source of most of the annotations.

If you have any suggestions for this page, please contact Lenny Rhine or Ruiling Gao.

Abstracts of Cochrane Reviews
Cochrane reviews are systematic reviews of the medical research literature, updated continually as new research becomes available. http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/mainindex.htm BIREME
The Latin American and Caribbean Center for Information (or BIREME as it is widely known from its previous name 'Biblioteca Regional de Medicina') is the regional centre for technical co-operation in health sciences information. It coordinates a network of libraries, documentation and information centers on health-related technical and scientific information. It is developing a virtual library that includes full-text electronic journals from the region (SCIELO) and a database of abstracts and citations of Latin American and Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences (LILACS). The information is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese. http://www.bireme.br/

BMJ Journals: Countries with Free Access
This site contains full-text access to 25 journals published by the BMJ Publishing Group. Access is available to ‘low income' and ‘low middle income' economies as defined by the World Bank. Via IP address, Internet links from eligible countries automatically will have free access. http://www.bmjjournals.com/subscriptions/countries.shtml/

Clinical Evidence
Clinical Evidence is the international source of the best available evidence for effective health care. It begins with common clinical questions and then looks for the evidence addressing those questions. E-access is free in developing and transitional countries. Access is provided for users of internet service providers with IP addresses in the following countries: http://www.bmjjournals.com/subscriptions/countries.shtml/ . The site is maintained by the BMJ Publishing Group. http://www.clinicalevidence.com

 Diseases, Disorders and Related Topics
This search engine uses Medical Subject Headings (MESH) to locate resources on the Internet and provides brief descriptions for each link. The site also organizes the links by broad subject based categories. The site is maintained by the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden . http://www.mic.ki.se/Diseases/index.html

FreeBooks4Doctors
This site is a gateway to full-text medical books available on the Internet. Access to the links is organized by medical specialty or language (English, Spanish or German). Many of the titles are relevant for health professionals in developing countries. http://www.FreeBooks4Doctors.com/fb/special.htm

FreeMedicalJournals.com
The site is a comprehensive, up-to-date list of medical journals available free on the Internet. The list is organized into multiple subject categories, by alphabetical order and by language (French, Spanish, Portuguese). The site is dedicated to the promotion of free access to medical journals over the Internet. http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/htm/special.htm

Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI)
HINARI provides access to over 2000 scientific publications for developing and transitional countries. The participating publishers include Blackwell, BMJ, Elsevier Science, Harcourt, JAMA, Kluwer, Nature Publishing, New England Journal of Medicine, Oxford University Press, Springer Verlag, Taylor & Francis and John Wiley. The access is by journal title, subject and language or link to the participating publishers' websites. The site is accessible in English, French and Spanish. Institutions are required to register (see: http://www.healthinternetwork.org/src/registration.php or email hinari@who.int ). The site includes links to other sources of free access to ejournals and regional ejournal indexes. http://www.healthinternetwork.org/scipub.php

HIF-net at WHO
'HIF-net at WHO' is an email discussion list dedicated to issues of health information access in resource-poor settings. Launched in July 2000 by INASP in collaboration with WHO, the list promotes cross-sectoral communication among providers and users of health information. It currently has over 600 participants, including health professionals, librarians, publishers, NGOs, and international agencies worldwide. To join, send an email to health@inasp.info with your name, organization and brief description of your professional interests. http://www.inasp.info/health/hif-net.html

HighWire: Free Access to Developing Economies
The site contains links to free access journals published online by HighWire Press including titles from the BMJ. Access is for all countries that appear in the World Bank's list of "low income economies," plus Djibouti . Individuals do not need to register since the software automatically detects the country you are connecting from and grants access accordingly. http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/devecon.dtl

HIV InSite
HIV InSite is a gateway to in-depth information on HIV/AIDS. Part of the site is dedicated to HIV/AIDS in Africa , with links to information on epidemiology, prevention, research, policy and social Issues, clinical issues, tuberculosis, traditional medicine, and individual country reports. The site is maintained by University of California at San Francisco , U.S. http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite

MedWeb: Diseases and Conditions
This site is an extensive list of hypertext links to disease resources on the Internet. http://www.medwebplus.com/subject/Diseases_and_Conditions/

 Organizing Medical Networked Information (OMNI)
OMNI is a guide to evaluated medicine and bioscience Internet resources: 'the UK 's gateway to high quality biomedical Internet resources'. Although the main end user is the UK health professional, the site is of value to health professionals worldwide. http://omni.ac.uk

PubMed Central: An Archive of Life Science Journals This digital archive provides free and unrestricted access to full-text journal articles. The site includes an author and journal title search engine. It is managed by the Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Library of Medicine, U.S. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/

PubMed Retrieval System (MEDLINE)
PubMed is a free search tool to the 14 million citations (1950's onwards) in MEDLINE. It is a service of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine, U.S. Users can search by author, journal title, keyword or ID number. It contains links to several other NLM databases (Nucleotide, Protein, Genome, Structure, PopSet, Taxonomy, OMIM). Via Bireme, the 1993 to date information is searchable in Spanish and Portuguese . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed

Source Bibliographic Database: International Health and Disability
This is a bibliographic database that provides access to over 20,000 records on primary health care and disability in developing countries. It is a collaboration between Healthlink Worldwide, Centre for International Child Health, and Handicap International. The site can be searched by keyword, subject, country and region. http://www.asksource.info/index.html

World Health Organization
The WHO site provides information about all WHO programmes including coordinaton of international health work, technical assistance and aid, prevention and control of epidemics, and improvement of health care. The site contains links to numerous useful full-text documents. http://www.who.int/