Note:

Below you will find a few suggestions for searching this topic. These suggestions aren't the only way to find materials, but they may help to get you started.

Peanut allergy

I. Find Background Information

  • Reference Source: Cambridge World History of Human Disease
    The Cambridge World History of Human Disease does not include an entry on "peanut allergy," however, a search for "allergy" returns an interesting article on Immunology that traces the history of the discover of allergic reactions. Open the PDF to view the article. Note the references in the bibliography at the end.
  • Encyclopedia of Medical Immunology
    Important! Don't use the search window at the top of the page. Instead, scroll down to find Search Within this Reference Work  on the right. Open the pdf to read the full article. There is much more than just a definition.
  • History of Science, Technology and Medicine
    This database isn't technically a reference source. It is a database of references to articles, books, and book chapters on medical, scientific, and cultural/social histories of disease.

II. Search the library catalog

  1. From the home page, open the link for the library catalog.
  2. A search for peanut allergy returns about 8 titles concerned with food allergies, overall. This means that sections or chapters of the books will also discuss peanut allergy.

III. Find Scholarly journal articles

Here's where it starts to get richer for this topic.

  • Database: ScienceDirect
    This database is great for this topic!  A search for "peanut allergy" (in quotation marks) immediately returns some interesting results, such as, "Parsing the peanut panic: The social life of a contested food allergy epidemic" and many others. Don't forget. You can add terms to further narrow your topic.
  • Database: PubMed
    A search for peanut allergy finds over 1,800 articles. "Peanut allergy" in quotation marks narrows the search to find only the phrase and reduces the number of articles to 705. That's still a lot!
    Search suggestions: You can add terms to narrow the search, "peanut allergy and ...(diagnosis, children, treatment, etc.) You might also try: peanut allergy and overview

IV. Finding current popular (written for the general public) magazine and newspaper articles

  1. Select the Advanced Search
  2. Add your search terms or phrase, e.g. "peanut allergy" (in quotation marks)
  3. Scroll down to limit to Document Type, Magazines