Making Sense of Controlled Vocabulary When Finding Information for and About Marginalized Persons

ABSTRACT

The controlled vocabularies of five major health-related databases are explored in order to present a partial listing of standardized subject headings for various concepts relating to groups of marginalized persons. Having easy access to these terms could make searching for health information about marginalized persons more efficient for the health information specialist. Persons doing such research can sometimes perceive official vocabulary as being demeaning, outdated, demoralizing, or misleading. Some examples of searching for information concerning marginalized person are shown as well as an Appendix of controlled vocabulary terms specific to the five biomedical databases studied.

KEYWORDS:

• Controlled vocabulary
• database searching
• library services
• marginalized persons

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/medgen/