Public and Population Health

Links to the sites to help you with your Basic Research Needs.

Refereed and Peer Reviewed mean the same thing.  A journal that is Refereed or Peer Reviewed has a board of specialists that check submitted papers to make sure their citations are accurate and the research methods are sound before the article is published.

There are several ways to check whether a journal is Refereed or Peer Reviewed.

• Some online journal indexes/databases give you a way to limit your search to Peer Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly articles.  Check the information link (looks like a white i in a blue circle) next to the index/database name on our Articles, Databases page and look under Refereed Journal Filter for instructions on limiting your search to Peer Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly articles.
• If you are using an index/database that does not give you a way to limit your search to Peer Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly articles you can still find out whether or not a journal is Peer Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly by using Ulrich's Periodical Directory.  Open our link to  Ulrich's Periodical Directory (which can be found on our Articles, Databases page) and type the name of the journal in the search box.  When the list of journals matching your search words appears, find the journal on the list. If the journal is Peer Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly there will be an icon that looks like a very styalized M next to the title (see the legend box at the top of the results screen if you need an example of the icon).
• The third method of checking whether a journal is Peer Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly only works if the library owns a paper copy of the journal.  If the library has a current issue of the journal in paper form, you can check the information page of the journal and it will tell you whether or not the journal is Peer Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly.