Guides: Grey Literature in Health Research: Where to Look

Featured eBook

Searching the Grey Literature by Sarah Bonato
Access Note: Concurrent User(s): 1
ISBN: 9781538100639
Publication Date: 2018-06-13

Featured eBook Chapter

Gathering evidence from grey literature and unpublished data
By Shannon Kugley and Richard Epstein. In Levay, P., & Craven, J. (2018). Systematic Searching. London: Facet Publishing.

Grey Search Tips

Grey Matters: a practical search tool for evidence-based medicine Grey matters: a practical search tool for evidence-based medicine. The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) is a national body that provides Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial health care decision makers with credible, impartial advice and evidence-based information about the effectiveness and efficiency of drugs and other health technologies.
Google Advanced Search Tips
Other Grey/Gray Literature Guides

Where to look for grey literature

Since Grey Literature isn't usually found in traditional databases (such as MEDLINE or CINAHL), you need to broaden your scope and consider other sources. Even Google Scholar won't include many grey sources, so depending on your topic of interest, explore other options such as the below tabbed grouping:

Resources to Help Find Grey Literature

Applied Math and Science Education Repository
AMSER is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use.

Centre for Reviews and Dissemination This link opens in a new window
Ceased in 2015, a collection of evidence-based medicine guidelines and reviews combining the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) and the NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED). The international HTA database is still active as an alternative.
Large collection.
1994-2015.
No longer updated.

Defense Technical Information Center
Publicly available reports from the US Department of Defense.
figshare
"figshare is a repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner."
Georgetown Medical Review
The Georgetown Medical Review is an academic journal created, authored, edited, and published by medical students for medical students.
Grey Literature Report
"As of January 2017, the Grey Literature Report website and database will be discontinued and will no longer be updated, but the resources will still be accessible." The Grey Literature Report was a bimonthly publication of The New York Academy of Medicine Library alerting readers to new grey literature publications in health services research and selected public health topics.
The Health and Medicine Division (HMD) Reports
The Health and Medicine Division (HMD) of the National Academies (formerly Institute of Medicine, IOM) publish reports that provide objective and straightforward advice to decision makers and the public. This site includes reports published after 1998.
Health Technology Assessment Portal
You can search over 300 HTA agencies, summarized reviews groups, etc.; from the HTAi.org Vortal.

MedEdPORTAL This link opens in a new window
Now indexed in PubMed MEDLINE. Provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges in partnership with the American Dental Education Association, MedEdPORTAL Publications promotes educational scholarship and collaboration by facilitating the open exchange of peer-reviewed health education teaching and assessment resources.
Small collection.
2005-Present.
Updated Frequently.

Mednar
Mednar is a free, medically-focused deep web search engine that includes a lot of grey literature.

MERLOT This link opens in a new window
Access curated, peer-reviewed learning materials, assignments and presentations in the health and life sciences and other disciplines. Members may also create content on the site. Added functionality available with personal account.
Large Collection.
2000-Present.
Updated Monthly

Nature Precedings
"Nature Precedings was launched in 2007 as NPG’s preprint server for the Life Science community. Since 2007, technological advances and the needs of the research community have evolved to the extent that the Nature Precedings site is unsustainable as it was originally conceived. As a result, Nature Precedings ceased accepting new submissions as of April 3rd, 2012." The archive is still maintained.
NGO Custom Google Search Engine
A custom Google search engine created by ALA's Government Documents Round Table (GODORT).
OAIaster Database
“OAIster is a union catalog of millions of records representing open access resources that was built by harvesting from open access collections worldwide using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). Today, OAIster includes more than 25 million records representing digital resources from more than 1,100 contributors.”
Open Dissertations
A collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs, Open Dissertations is a open-access citation database that provides information about dissertations and theses, with links to institutional repositories.
OpenGrey: System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe
[Shutting down summer 2022] Open access to 700,000 European grey literature documents on many subject, including biological and medical sciences.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is an independent organization created to help people make informed health care decisions and improve health care delivery. PCORI will commission research that is guided by patients, caregivers and the broader health care community and will produce high integrity, evidence-based information.
SIREN Evidence Library
Created by UCSF, SIREN stands for Social Interventions Research & Evaluation Network. "This Evidence Library contains research articles, issue briefs, reports, and commentaries that either focus on or are relevant to evaluating health care-based interventions that address patients’ social and economic needs. We prioritize for inclusion resources that carefully describe and evaluate the social needs components of these interventions, and to a lesser extent those where the social components are mentioned but are not the primary focus of the work. The library currently includes only papers published since the year 2000."
Think Tank Search
A Google Custom Search of more than 700 think tanks and research centers, provided by Harvard Kennedy School.

TRIP This link opens in a new window
Clinical search engine for evidence-based medicine and practice guidelines. Added functionality available with personal account. Good for foreground questions
Large Collection.
1997-Present.
Updated bi-weekly
WorldCat This link opens in a new window
Search for dissertations and theses from libraries around the world. Limit Content to "Thesis/dissertations." Material not owned by Dahlgren Memorial Library can be requested via DML's Document Delivery Service.
Large Collection.
2001-Present.
Updated daily

WorldWideScience.org
Federated search of many national and international resources that provide access to gray literature. Several language options are available.

Preprint Citation Index This link opens in a new window
Provides access to research articles made available before the formal publication in a journal (preprints) from arXiv, bioRxiv, chemRxiv, medRxiv and Preprints.org respositories. Added functionality available with personal account.
2023-Present
Large Collection
Updated as needed

medRxiv
"medRxiv is a free online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences."
arXiv.org
Scholar pre-print/e-print repository for articles in Quantitative Biology, Statistics, and other physical sciences. Operated and maintained by Cornell University Library.
OSF Preprints
Powered by the Open Science Framework, this federated search engine includes over two million preprints. Can search all disciplines or filter by Medicine and Health Sciences.
bioRxiv
The preprint server for biology allows you to search all preprints or browse by subject area. Sign up for email alerts or RSS feeds. Operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
PsyArXiv
Preprints for the psychological sciences including clinical psychology, neuroscience, and other subject areas. Created by the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science and the Center for Open Science.
Preprint Server Directory from ASAPbio
Extensive list of preprint servers, courtesy or ASAPbio (Accelerating Science and Publication in biology): "a scientist-driven nonprofit working to drive open and innovative communication in the life sciences."

Web of Science This link opens in a new window
This citation database includes the Conference Proceedings Citation Index (2002-present) as part of its Core Collection.
Large Collection
1970-Present
Updated Daily

F1000Research Posters
Over 10,000 life sciences posters in this collection by F1000.

Embase This link opens in a new window
"Embase includes conference abstracts from important biomedical, drug and medical device conferences dating back to 2009. It currently indexes 7,000+ conferences covering over 2.4 million conference abstracts-advanced information that can’t be found searching MEDLINE alone." Limit Publication Type to "Conference Abstract" or "Conference Paper."
Large collection.
1947-Present.
Updated daily
CINAHL This link opens in a new window
Limit search results to the "Proceedings" Publication Type.
Large Collection.
1981- present.
Updated yearly.

BMC Proceedings
"BMC Proceedings is an online, open access journal publishing proceedings of conferences across all scientific and clinical disciplines, including peer-reviewed full-length articles, collections of abstracts and meeting reports.
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Sometimes, with a little digging, you can uncover conference abstracts within the cached pages of the Internet Archive.

Conducting a Web search and limiting to "site:.gov" can be a good way to start looking for governmentally-produced gray literature. However, it's good to have some of these sites already on your radar.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
A wealth of internal reports and grants information!
CDC - Center for Disease Control and Prevention
An overload of grey literature and statistics - wonderful information but weak internal search.
CDC Publications
Within the larger CDC site, this grouping of internal publications helps you to narrow and see the potential.
CDC WONDER
CDC statistics, reports, and guidelines.

ClinicalTrials.gov This link opens in a new window
Database of up-to-date information for locating federally and privately supported clinical trials for clinicians and patients.
Large collection.
2000-Present.
Updated bi-weekly.

Defense Technical Information Center
Publicly available reports from the US Department of Defense.
FDA: US Food and Drug Administration
Provides full-text white papers, presentations, publications and other documents.
Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO)
"Health and Environmental Research Online (HERO) is a database of scientific studies and other references used to develop EPA's risk assessments aimed at understanding the health and environmental effects of pollutants and chemicals. It is developed and managed in EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) by the National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA)."
HSRProj (NLM)
HSRProj (Health Services Research Projects in Progress).
Database of information about ongoing health services research and public health projects.
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)

NIH RePORTER This link opens in a new window
Find both intramural and extramural National Institutes of Health-funded research projects, publications and patents. See also the Federal RePORTER.
Large Collection.
2014-Present.
Updated bi-annually.

Digital Dissertations: Current Research at Georgetown
Includes abstracts for Georgetown University's doctoral dissertations beginning July 1980 and for masters theses beginning spring 1988

EthxWeb: Literature in Bioethics This link opens in a new window
Ceased in 2011, an index of bioethics citations, articles, reports, and other multimedia.
Large Collection.
1974-2009.
Updates ceased after 2011.

Virtual Health Library (VHL)
A repository supported by BIREME, PAHO, and WHO. "The collection of information sources of the Portal consists of bibliographic databases produced by the VHL Network, such as LILACS, Medline, and other types of information sources, such as open educational resources, websites and scientific events."
Creighton Digital Repository
Institutional repository for Creighton University.
MEDSpace Digital Repository
Institutional repository for Duke University.
Loyola eCommons
Institutional repository for Loyola University in Chicago.
Health Sciences Research Commons
Institutional repository for George Washington University, managed by Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library.
Jefferson Digital Commons
Institutional repository for Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
Scholarly Commons Repository
University of Pennsylvania's respository
Digital Commons@Becker
Institutional repository for Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
SHERPA (UK)
Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access
OpenDOAR
"OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. Each OpenDOAR repository has been visited by project staff to check the information that is recorded here." OpenDOAR is a world-wide resource, with links to repositories all over the world. You can browse the repositories or search them all at once.

ClinicalTrials.gov This link opens in a new window
Database of up-to-date information for locating federally and privately supported clinical trials for clinicians and patients.
Large collection.
2000-Present.
Updated bi-weekly.
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials This link opens in a new window
Database of controlled trials created as part of an international effort to create an unbiased, quality controlled source of data for systematic reviews. Added functionality available with personal account.
Large collection.
1991-present.
Updated bi-weekly.

AstraZeneca Clinical Trials
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Clinical Study Register
CenterWatch
Searchable database of Clinical Trials, includes their own white papers, and drug information.
ClinicalStudyDataRequest.com
View clinical studies and request access to data from more than ten study sponsors and over 3,000 trials.
The YODA Project
"The Yale University Open Data Access (YODA) Project at the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation advocates for the responsible sharing of clinical research data." Search for trials or browse by generic name, therapeutic area, or condition.
OpenTrials
Beta. OpenTrials is an open, online database of information about the world’s clinical research trials.
WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform

Guidelines via ClinicalKey
Over 4,000 guidelines in this database. Search all or browse by authoring organization or specialty.

TRIP This link opens in a new window
This database will try to fill the gap left behind by National Guidelines Clearinghouse. The TRIP Database is a clinical search tool designed to allow health professionals to rapidly identify the highest quality clinical evidence for clinical practice. Registered users (registration is free) benefit from extra features such as CPD, search history, and collaborative tools.
Large Collection.
1997-Present.
Updated bi-weekly

HCUP (Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project)
"The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) includes the largest collection of longitudinal hospital care data in the United States."
HealthData.gov
"This site is dedicated to making high value health data more accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers in the hopes of better health outcomes for all."
CDC National Center for Health Statistics
CDC Data & Statistics
Browse data and statistics by topic/condition or link-out to other resources and tools.
Google Dataset Search
"Dataset Search enables users to find datasets stored across thousands of repositories on the Web, making these datasets universally accessible and useful."
Dryad
Dryad is an international repository of data underlying scientific and medical publications, particularly data for which no specialized repository exists. All material in Dryad is associated with a scholarly publication. Most data in the repository are associated with peer-reviewed articles, although data associated with non-peer reviewed publications from reputable academic sources, such as dissertations, are also accepted.
re3data
"re3data.org is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines." Search by keywords or browse by discipline.
FAIRsharing
Search or browse for datasets in the life or biomedical sciences.
Harvard Dataverse
Large collection of Social Sciences research data, hosted by Harvard University. Also includes over 1,500 datasets in Medicine, Health, and Life Sciences.
Mendeley Data
"Search 8.2 million datasets from domain-specific and cross-domain repositories" Within Elsevier's Mendeley platform.

Statistics
by Linda Van Keuren Last Updated May 22, 2023 127 views this year

OpenTrialsFDA
"OpenTrialsFDA works on making clinical trial data from the FDA (the US Food and Drug Administration) more easily accessible and searchable."
FDA: US Food and Drug Administration
Provides full-text white papers, presentations, publications and other documents.
CenterWatch Drug Information
CenterWatch has some free resources on drugs including recently approved FDA Drugs and (ongoing or completed) trial results.
PharmedOut Resources
Select drug resources from PharmedOut, a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence-based prescribing and educates healthcare professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices.

Dahlgren Memorial Library

Grey Literature in Health Research

Featured eBook

Featured eBook Chapter

Grey Search Tips

Where to look for grey literature

Resources to Help Find Grey Literature