Pharmacy Research Guide

Clinical practice guidelines and medical outcomes

Health Information, Traveler’s Health, MMWR. This is a good place to look for frequently updated and reliable information on topics related to public health and epidemiology. Contents that might be most useful to pharmacists are immunization requirements for travelers, childhood vaccination requirements, health data and statistics, prevention guidelines, and access to a number of publications such as MMWR and Emerging Infectious Disease Journal.

Medicaid and Medicare Information

ClinicalTrials.gov provides patients, family members, health care professionals, and members of the public easy access to information on clinical trials for a wide range of diseases and conditions. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), through its National Library of Medicine (NLM), has developed this site in close and ongoing collaboration with all NIH Institutes and the FDA. This site currently contains clinical studies sponsored primarily by the NIH and other Federal agencies. During the coming year, additional studies from the pharmaceutical industry will be included.

Provides information on what medications can be used safely by pilots when flying.

Useful for checking adverse reaction reports for dietary supplements and drug interactions. The Orange book of approved drug products is also available on-line here, as well as orphan drug products (with links to other web-sites for rare disease/orphan product information). Contains an alphabetical listing of drugs licensed in the US and the corresponding package inserts: www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/drugsatfda/. Lists the latest information on drug recalls, drug shortages, and changes in labeling: www.fda.gov/cder/whatsnew.htm

Adverse Drug Reaction / Product Problem Reporting, Safety Information

Includes information on drug and alcohol abuse, educational materials, research, funding/grants, online courses and forums, a kid's page and work-place issues related to drug and alcohol abuse.

Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.

Contains clinical guidelines for the treatment of asthma, cholesterol, hypertension (eg, JNC VII), and obesity (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/index.htm).

AIDS, Allergy, Asthma, Infectious disease research activities

Links to government disease-specific institutions, disease information. Provides information on JNC VII Guidelines.

NLM Publications, Medline, Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program

Links to government and safety sites, publications, media releases, federal register, OSHA standards

This site is sponsored by the US government and the Surgeon General. Reports from the Surgeon General can be found under the “My Library” section. At the top of the home page you can search various diseases.

Source for social, demographic, and economic information

Health and Human Services Agencies, News and Public Affairs

International Travel and Health, Publications, reports and other useful information; publication of proposed INN (international non-propriety names) listing: http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/druginformation/INN_PL103.pdf and the International Pharmacopoeia: http://apps.who.int/phint/en/p/about/ (see links below)