Michigan State University

Collection Development Policy Statement: Public Health

Analysis of the Subject Field

  1. Chronology of the Subject: Materials on current public health practice and research, as well as the history of medicine and public health, are collected.
  2. Languages of Resources Collected: Most materials are acquired in English. Most non-English language materials on public health topics fall under the purview of Area Studies bibliographers. (See the collection development policies for African Studies, Asian Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Muslim/Middle Eastern Studies, and Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Studies.)  
  3. Geography of the Subject: The geographical emphasis is primarily North American, but European, African, Latin American and other areas are covered when they are important to a particular subject. The Gliozzo Fund is used to purchase public health materials focused on public health in countries outside of the United States.
  4. Format of the Resources Collected: As the MPH program is currently online, the primary emphasis for textbooks and pedagogical books is on electronic resources whenever available.  All appropriate formats, including print and electronic, are collected. Materials that may be of interest to community users and non-public health faculty and students may be purchased in print.  Alternative publication types, such as graphic non-fiction, may be collected if it falls within the scope of the collection. Audio-visual materials are currently mostly streaming video, and  tend to be purchased as part of larger collections in conjunction with other collections..The same is true for existing health datasets, which are important in public health research and the MPH program.
  5. Date of Publication of Resources Collected: Emphasis is on current publications at present.
  6. Data Resources: The program in public health makes extensive use of data and statistics. Public health as a discipline incorporates data and statistics into its core research and practice methodologies.  Clinical health data can be hard to access, as it is often covered under HIPAA, but epidemiological data is more likely to be available for research purposes. Virtually all open data in the field is generated by governmental organizations and NGOs, and as a result these data sets are usually freely available to researchers and students. The library tends not to collect or subscribe to commercial collections that collate or reformat freely available data, unless the reformatting adds to the value of the data (i.e., by making it more usable).  The library may also collect or subscribe to data that is sold and packaged by the private company that collected it (for example, polling data may be sold by Gallup).
  7. Diversity & Inclusion: Importance is placed on support, valuing, and purchasing materials that introduce the unique perspectives and needs of underserved and marginalized communities and research that addresses health disparities.  This includes material written about diverse communities as well as material written by researchers from underrepresented communities and countries when possible. Specific focii are the Global South,environmental toxicology, health justice, and literature focused on Michigan residents/communities which are marginalized by reason of race, ethnicity, gender, immigration status, or sexuality and gender expression. All of these factors impact the quality and access to healthcare that people receive, so all are important topics of attention for public health research.

Last updated

Chana Kraus-Friedberg, 7/19/23