General Search Tips

To conduct and searches (e.g., to retrieve records that contain pregnancy and prenatal in a particular field), enter both terms in the search field.

To conduct or searches (e.g., to retrieve records that contain either pregnancy or prenatal, but not necessarily both, in a particular field), it is necessary to search twice, once for each term.

Choose the most unusual words, if possible (not health!).

If you are searching for a term that has varied endings, the term may be truncated by typing in the root of the word followed by an asterisk. For example, for materials on adolescents, typing adolescen* will retrieve records using both adolescents and adolescence.

To match an exact phrase, enclose it in quotation marks. For example, "special health needs" matches children with special health needs and the special health needs of pregnant women with disabilities but not children with special health care needs or special needs of newborns.

The database search engine is not case sensitive. For example, searches for WIC and wic yield the same records.

The order of the words is unimportant. Searching for public health yields public health programs and health services for the public, but not public private partnerships (because there is no health).

You may also search using these special characters:

• @ matches one arbitrary character (e.g., wom@n matches woman and women)
• * matches zero or more arbitrary characters (e.g., *feeding matches feeding disorders and breastfeeding)
• = forces the words to be an exact match (e.g., =nutrition matches nutrition and nutrition assessment, but not nutritionists or nutritional requirements)

If a search finds too many records, redo it with additional terms. For example, add a population type (e.g., adolescents) or another subject term in the keyword field. Or narrow your search by adding a state abbreviation to the state field to find projects in a particular state (see tips for searching specific fields below).

Simple Search

Use the simple search field to conduct a comprehensive search on a particular topic. Fill in words or phrases. The title, keyword, and annotation fields will be searched. Records retrieved will contain all the search terms, which may be located in any of these fields. For a more focused search, enter your word or phrase in the keyword field, which indicates the main topic addressed in a project.

Advanced Search

Please note: Specific fields may be searched individually or in combination.

Grant Number
This field contains the old and current grant numbers for the project. Enter the number of the grant, without spaces, including letter prefixes (e.g., R40MC00112).

Project Name
This field contains the official project name. For faster searches, don't enter the entire name in this field. Limit the number of words to two or three of the most unusual words, if possible. For example, to find the "National Consortium to Advance Education and Public Policy," enter the terms consortium advance in the project name field.

Grantee
This field contains the name of the organization or institution that receives the grant from MCHB. Grantee names are the broadest institutional entity of an organization. For example, if the project is being conducted by the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the grantee is the University of Nebraska.

Project Director
This field contains the name of the person(s) who is the project's principal investigator. Projects may have more than one project director. All project directors of a project are included. A project director's first name, middle initial (if known), last name, and degree(s) are recorded. Search the project director field by entering the last name(s) of individual(s). An example of the content of the project director field is Rochelle Mayer, Ed.D.

City
This field contains the city in which a project and/or grantee is located (e.g., Arlington).

State
This field contains the state or political jurisdiction in which a project and/or grantee is located. The U.S. Postal Service's two-letter state abbreviations are used for the states' names (e.g., VA).

Zip
This field contains the zip code in which a project and/or grantee is located. Four-digit extensions are included when known, but do not need to be included in the search (i.e., entering 22201 will find 22201 and 22201-2617).

Date
What are the beginning and end dates? The beginning date is the earliest date associated with a project. The end date is the last date that a project is scheduled to be active. Together, the beginning and end dates constitute the "project period" for a grant. Typically (but not always) project periods are from 10/1/_ to 9/30/_. Some projects are funded in cycles. Thus, the standard beginning date in the beginning date field remains the historical beginning date (e.g., 10/1/54). (Typically, training projects have this characteristic.)

Why search by date? You can search by date to find projects that are scheduled to end by a certain date, find projects that began on a certain date, and find projects that were active during a certain period.

How do I search by date? This is a useful field to search in combination with the simple search field or keyword field if you are interested in limiting your search to a single year or range of years. Symbols allow you to search for dates:

• Before a certain date (e.g., <10/1/95)
• Before, or equal to, a certain date (e.g., <=10/1/95)
• After a certain date (e.g., >10/1/95)
• After, or equal to, a certain date (e.g., >=10/1/95)
• Equal to a certain date (e.g., =10/1/95)
• Within a certain date range (e.g., 10/1/95...10/1/96)
• Today's date, using the // symbol

Note: The database covers projects that started 10/1/2002 or earlier so searches for start dates later than that will not find any results.

How should dates be formatted?

The standard format is month/day/year (e.g., 10/1/92). However, for the year 2000 and beyond, use four digits for the year (e.g., 10/1/2001).

Can I search for an exact date? Yes. You can search for an exact date (e.g., 10/1/93), by entering the date without a symbol. Warning: Although many projects begin and end on the same dates (i.e., October 1 and September 30), there are always exceptions. Thus, searching by exact dates is not recommended.

Do I have to search for projects by beginning AND end dates? No. If you wish, you may search by one or the other. Simply leave the other field blank.

How do I search for projects that were active in a certain fiscal year? "Active" projects are defined as those that are active as of October 1 of that fiscal year. For example, a project is active in FY 1998 if it was active as of October 1, 1997. (Fiscal years run from October 1 through September 30.) The project does not have to be active for the entire year to be counted as active for that year; even if it is active for only 1 day in the year, it is considered an active project.

Project Type
Every project belongs to a specified project type. Project types break down the records in the database into useful categories. In many cases, searching by project type can be much more efficient than other types of searches. For example, it is easier to look for Healthy Start projects by looking in the project type field than by using keywords.

Keyword

The keyword field indicates the main focus of the project and the population addressed. Use the keyword field to conduct a concentrated search for projects working on particular MCH-related issues. Fill in one or more terms using our keyword list. The keyword field in records retrieved will contain all of the search terms entered. For a more comprehensive search for projects, use the simple search field, which will search the project name, keyword, and annotation fields.