HHS 460 Research Methods in Health & Human Services Wk2-1

Locating Resources      

The ability to locate and utilize information relative to Health and  Human Services is an important component of many health and human  service jobs. Some of the areas included in HHS programs are:

• Legal/illegal immigration
• Poverty
• Violence in the Media
• Unemployment
• Alcoholism
• Gambling
• Sexual Harassment
• Criminal Justice
• Hunger / Homelessness
• Mental Illness
• Health

As an example, the area of “poverty” was selected from the above list  to locate information and relevant reports.  To accomplish this, the  following was entered into a search engine (such as Google or MSN):  “Health and human services and programs dealing with poverty.”  One of  the 1, 490,000 “hits” was titled: “Poverty Guidelines, Research and  Measurement.”  Upon searching this website, an elaborate set of focus  subtitles was found.  Under the heading “Poverty Research Centers” six  more references were discovered.  As the interest was focused on  discovering what information was available, the search centered on “The  National Poverty Center.”  An examination on this site under that  heading yielded numerous areas regarding new research opportunities,  informing the policy community, and training for young researchers.   Your specific assignment follows.  Start with an exploration of what can  be found in several of the areas listed above.  Then, identify one area  and prepare a descriptive post outlining the information in this site.   You may want to experiment with various areas in order to understand  the unusually large number of resources / programs, but also the kinds  of information.