Hints for Searching Health Hotlines

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Searching Single Words or Concepts

• Enter a word in the Any Word field that describes your topic (for example, diabetes).
• Enter a word that you know (or think) is included in the name of an organization, in the Organization Name field (for example, children).

1. Use the Boolean operator "OR" within a field. Select this option by clicking on the second radio button on your search screen. If you enter two or more words in any of the fields (except the State field), you will retrieve information about organizations that have services related to either of the words. For example, entering rehabilitation disability in the Any Word field will retrieve those organizations that have services related to either rehabilitation or disability.
   
   
2. Use Truncation. Using "truncation" enables you to search more than one form of a word by entering a root word and placing a [*] at the end of the word. For example, typing alcohol* in the Organization Name field will retrieve organizations with the word Alcohol (Alcohol Rehab for the Elderly) as well as organizations with the word Alcoholism (Alcoholism and Drug Addition Treatment Center) in their names.

1. Use the Boolean operator "AND" within a field. Select this option by clicking on the top radio button on your search screen. If you enter two words or more in any of the fields, you will retrieve information about organizations that have services related to both of the words. For example, entering women sports in the Any Word field will retrieve those organizations that have services related to both women and sports.
   
   
2. Finding an Exact Match for Two or More Adjacent Words: Place single quotation marks around two or more adjacent words. For example, to search for an organization which you know includes mental health counselors in its name, enter mental health counselors in the Organization Name field. You will retrieve only those organizations whose names have all three words strung together in the order in which you entered them, such as the American Mental Health Counselors Association.