Subject guides: Public Health: Grey Literature

What is Grey Literature?

Grey Literature is research that has not been published commercially and is published outside of traditional academic sources (E.g. Books & Journals). Examples of grey literature are: statistics, government reports, conference proceedings, theses, clinical guidelines & clinical trials registers. Grey Literature can be an important source for finding the latest research findings and the most current statistics and data.

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You can find many grey literature resources on government, industry, professional and community organisation websites.

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Grey Literature Sources

Analysis & Policy Observatory (APO- Health section) APO’s searchable digital repository is a unique collection of material published by organisations (also known as grey literature) on any public policy issue – covering Australia, New Zealand and beyond.
Campbell Library (Campbell Collaboration) The Campbell Collaboration (C2) works for positive social and economic change through the production and use of systematic reviews and other evidence syntheses for evidence-based policy and practice in the areas of education, crime and justice, disability, international development, knowledge translation and implementation, nutrition and social welfare.
Grey Matters Developed by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health. A downloadable checklist containing hundreds of international grey literature sources
Open Grey (ARCHIVE ONLY - no longer updated) An open access repository containing over 700,000 pieces of grey literature
WHOLIS (World Health Organization library database) International material from a wide variety of sources

Open source

OpenDOAR Users of this service can search through the world's repositories of freely available research information.
OAIster OAIster is a catalog of millions of records representing open archive digital resources that was built by harvesting from open archive collections worldwide..
Sydney University eScholarship Repository The Sydney eScholarship repository collects and provides global access to University of Sydney research.
Nature Precedings Preprint server for biomedical sciences, chemistry and earth sciences. (Also indexed by Google Scholar and OAlster if you prefer a broader search)

Related subject guides

Statistics and Census Data
Government Documents - Australia Covers a wide range of Government publications including parliamentary materials and Hansard
Government Reports - Australia Focuses specifically on different kinds of Government reports
Finding a thesis Find Sydney University, Australian and overseas dissertations

Evaluating Grey literature

AACODS Checklist

Grey Literature is not always peer reviewed, so you will need to critically evaluate each source to ensure that it is high quality. The AACODS checklist, created by Jess Tindale, is a useful evaluation checklist. (Archived Flinders Academic Commons)

AACODS Checklist

Practice Guidelines

Australian

Australian Practice Guidelines The Guidelines Portal provides a single entry point for access to clinical practice guidelines developed for use in Australian health care settings
NHMRC guideline index Range of health related guidelines
RACGP Clinical Guidelines (Aust) The RACGP produces a wide range of clinical guidelines to assist GPs in their work.
Series of National Guidlines (SONGS) - Aust The Series of National Guidelines (SoNGs) have been developed in consultation with the Communicable Diseases Network Australia (CDNA) and endorsed by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC). Their purpose is to provide nationally consistent advice and guidance to public health units in responding to a notifiable disease event
Professional Codes & Guidelines (Nursing & Midwifery Board) Professional codes and guidelines for Australian nurses and midwives
Clinical Guidelines (Cancer Council) Clinical practice guidelines bring together the best available evidence to underpin scientifically-valid recommendations for the prevention and diagnosis of cancer and treatment of care of patients.
Care Search (Palliative care knowledge network) Palliative care evidence and tools for health professionals and information about death and dying for the whole community

International

National Guideline Clearinghouse (US) Broad collection of guidelines mainly on health related topics
Public Health Agency of Canada Guidelines The following guidelines have been published by Public health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to support Canada's disease prevention and control efforts.
NHS Evidence - National Library of Guidelines (UK) Review the evidence across broad health and social care topics. Includes COVID-19 rapid guidelines and clinical guidelines.
WHO Guidelines summaries Find clinical practice guidelines from the World Health Organization. These official guideline summaries are developed from the World Health Organization guidelines and are authored to support clinical decision making at the point of care. Read more at: https://www.guidelinecentral.com/summaries/organizations/world-health-organization/

Clinical Trial Registries

Australian Clinical Trials NHMRC's database of Australian clinical trials
ClinicaTrials.gov (US) Database of publicly and privately funded clinical trials
EU Clinical Trials Register Database containing clinical trials conducted in the European Union and the European Economic Area, as well as trials that are linked to European paediatric medicine development.
International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO) World Health Organisation's clinical trial registry - search to find international clinical trials