Health, Illness & Healing in Cultural Context

Country Information

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture.  Ref. F1406 .E53 1996 (5 vols.)
An authoritative work covering Latin American people, places, concepts and events.  Entries on individual countries focus on their political history.

Country Studies (Library of Congress) http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html (some also available in print: GovDoc D 101.22:550- ).  
Excellent book-length studies of individual countries’ history, culture and politics.

Brief country profiles are also available at the following web sites:

Background Notes (U.S. Department of State). http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/ 

CIA World Factbook.  http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html 

Economist Country Briefings.  http://www.economist.com/countries 

Lonely Planet Destinations.  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations 

Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations (Ref. G63 .W67 2001),  and the World Almanac (online through FirstSearch or in Ref. AY67 .N5 W7) contain fairly up-to-date summary information on countries.

Cultural Information

Culture and Customs of… [Country] (check BSC Library Catalog for call number)
A series of book length studies of the culture and customs of various Latin American countries, published by Greenwood Press.

Cultural Profiles Project http://www.settlement.org/cp 
A set of online profiles of life and customs in countries around the world, developed in association with the University of Toronto.

Cambridge World History of Food.  TX353 .C255 2000
Oxford Companion to Food.  Ref. TX349 .D38 1999
Useful sources of information on food and food history!

Health Information and Statistics

Pan American Health Organization http://www.paho.org
See especially: their Health Data, Country Health Profiles, and Health Topics

Virtual Health Library from BIREME, an organization devoted to the diffusion of Latin American health information.
http://www.bireme.br/bvs/I/ihome.htm

INASP Health Links from the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications http://www.inasp.info/health/links/gatela.html#biremevhl

Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations http://www.fao.org/
Provides information on food production, food quality and nutrition.

Demographic and Health Surveys http://www.measuredhs.com - Information on population, health and nutrition in the developing countries.
See especially their country statistics.

World Health Organization http://www.who.int/en/
Includes statistical information and information by country and topic.

Statistical Information from ECLAC, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean - http://www.eclac.cl/estadisticas/default.asp?idioma=IN.  
Includes the full text of their Statistical Yearbook for Latin America and the Caribbean.  

InterAmerican Development Bank - Sustainable Development Department - Health issues
http://www.iadb.org/sds/soc/site_11_e.htm  

United Nations Statistics Division - http://unstats.un.org/unsd. 
Includes links to their own statistical databases and to additional statistical information from UN agencies such as the IMF, UNESCO, WHO, and the World Bank.  . 

International Historical Statistics : The Americas, 1750-1993.  Ref. HA175 .M55 1998.
An excellent print source for historical statistics of all sorts.

Lexis Nexis Statistical
Try searching this database of statistics if you are having difficulty locating needed stats.

Books

The BSC Library has a growing collection of books in the realm of Latin American studies, selected by the faculty of the College.  You may search for these books through the BSC Library Catalog, available from the Library homepage.  Useful subjects might include the country name (or Latin America) plus the words health, diet, nutrition, social conditions, social life and customs, or description and travel.

Can't find what you're looking for in our library?  Try searching WorldCat, a union catalog of major libraries in the U.S. and throughout the world.  BSC students, faculty and staff can use the Library's free interlibrary loan service to request books and other materials from other libraries.

Indexes & Databases

Articles may be found by consulting resources on the BSC Library's Indexes & Databases page.  Useful databases may include:

HAPI, the Hispanic American Periodicals Index (1970 – present) – indexes articles and other works appearing in over 400 social science and humanities journals. 

Ethnic News Watch -  a searchable database of full text magazines, journals and newspapers from the ethnic and minority  presses in English and Spanish.

Informe - includes the full text of more than 60 Spanish-language and bilingual periodicals.

Health and Wellness Resource Center - access to more than 700 health/medical journals and articles from 2,200 general interest publications, and links to health assessment sites and government databases.

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition - over scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines

PubMed - the National Library of Medicine's database of over 15 million citations for biomedical articles

Virtual Health Library Databases - sponsored by BIREME (Brazil), the Pan American Health Organization, and the World Health Organization.

Some of the Library's general databases, such as Infotrac's Expanded Academic Index, EBSCOHost's Academic Search Elite, Lexis Nexis Academic, and ProQuest's Research Library Complete, may also yield information for this course . Each of these covers some scholarly journals, as well as general interest publications, and provide access to articles in full text.

Web Portals

Listed below are some key websites for locating online information on health issues in Latin America, to supplement your google searches!

LANIC - Latin American Network Information Center http://lanic.utexas.edu
The University of Texas at Austin's gateway to "Internet-based information to, from, or on Latin America," in existence since 1992.  See especially their links to Health Resources (http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/health/) and  Country Pages (http://lanic.utexas.edu/subject/countries/)

Internet Resources for Latin America - http://lib.nmsu.edu/subject/bord/laguia
The University of New Mexico’s guide to numerous information resources for Latin American studies.

Hispanic Reading Room (Library of Congress) - http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/hispanic - see especially their Portals to the World

Latin America Internet Resource Links (UIUC)  http://door.library.uiuc.edu/lat/links.html