Method of Collection

As of September 2006, references provided for Sexual Health on this site:

§ Represent and/or discuss one or more South Asian group

§ Are published during years 1986 to present

§ Include reports, articles, and studies that are based in United States. When possible, references also include those from Australia, Canada, and United Kingdom

Bibliometric analyses and internet searches were conducted to provide a comprehensive list of:

§ Journal articles

§ Agency publications and presentations; and

§ Online letters, newspaper and magazine articles.

Journal Articles

Bibliometric analyses were conducted to assess the number of research outputs relating to South Asians and sexual health. Research publications were reviewed by one of the three Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) bibliographic databases: Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Search was limited to include: journal articles for the years 1986-2006. Other forms of publications such as editorials, meeting abstracts, and agency publications were excluded from the analysis.

Both individual and combination search terms were used to find unduplicated references relating to South Asians and sexual health. For example, to find studies based in the United States, the following steps were taken:

For the databases, using the search term “South Asian” alone, a total of 1,758 references were found. Combining this with search term “United States” yielded a total of 79 listings. Of those 79 references, search terms “STDs” and “HIV/AIDS” were added, yielding only 3 unduplicated references.

With these three unduplicated references, subsearches were conducted, by reviewing cited references within each article, as well as running a search on related records (for which a link was provided in the database).

Study abstracts and/or entire articles were reviewed to confirm South Asian representation in each study, revealing a total of 23 relevant references.

Other Publications

Extensive internet search was conducted for agency publications and presentations as well as online letters, newspaper and magazine articles. Using the search engine Google, search terms included “South Asian and sexual health,” yielding millions of web pages. While going through the search results, only print media relating to South Asians outside of South Asia were extracted to include references provided.

Future Listings

SAH Project will continue adding to reference lists over time, using similar methods outlined above. In addition, visitors can contribute additional references currently not listed.

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