Public Policy
Suggested resources for the Ford School of Public Policy or anyone researching a policy topic.
Social policy
There are some broad areas of common interest in public policy, which includes social policy as it relates to climate change and the environment, education, public health and health care, and science and technology. Listed below are starting points for researching public policy in these areas.
More detailed resources can be found in these additional guides:
Education
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ERIC: Education Resources Information CenterDatabase of more than 1.1 million education-related citations going back to 1966. This database also includes more than 107,000 full-text non-journal documents (issued 1993-2004). Open to all users.The full text documents for ERIC have been temporarily disabled due to a privacy concern. (08/21/2012)
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Education Abstracts (with Full Text)Education Abstracts covers every age and sector of the educational community from preschool through college. This is a bibliographic database that includes many publications covering education policy. U-M users only.
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National Center for Education StatisticsProvides national education statistical data. Includes information on elementary and secondary school education, college and advanced degree programs.
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National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)Nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history. The "nation's report card."
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Condition of Education"System of indicators on all levels of education and labor force outcomes in the United states, as well as international comparisons. The Condition of Education is supported by the annual Digest of Education Statistics and Projections of Education Statistics."
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Nexis UniFind state bills and laws back to the early 1990s. U-M users only.
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National Conference of State LegislaturesNCSL provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on the most pressing state issues.
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National Survey of State Laws2019 edition available online from HeinOnline
Environment
- Government agencies at federal, state and local levels that deal with environmental resources and regulation
- Books and other library materials with these subject headings - limit by date, subject or other filters to narrow results
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Environment module, ProQuest Trends and PolicyU.S. federal government sources on the environment, including legislation, reports, debates, cases and statistics, along with news articles.
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GreenwireEnergy and environmental news.
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Agricultural & Environmental Science DatabaseA multidisciplinary database providing comprehensive coverage of the environmental sciences.
Health
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NIH Office of Science PolicyWorks across the "biomedical research enterprise to ensure NIH policy evolves in tandem with rapidly advancing science and technology." Policy areas include artificial intelligence, health care, clinical research, data sharing and public access to research.
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OECD publicationsProvides books, working papers, databases, and key tables with regard to social issues and health. U-M user only.
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Global HealthProvides information on international health, biomedical life sciences, non-communicable diseases, public health nutrition, food safety and hygiene, and much more. This database contains more than 1.2 million records dating back to 1973. Also included is the Global Health Archive, consisting of 800,000 records from 1910-1973.U-M users only.
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World Development Indicator (The World Bank)Provide information about health, nutrition and population of worldwide countries.
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World Health Organization (WHO)WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
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Health Policy Reference Centera comprehensive full-text database designed to support the creation, implementation, or study of health policy and the health care system. This collection offers full-text coverage of information relevant to many areas integral to health policy, including: access, administration, economics, planning, reform, insurance, law, research, ethics, public health, and social medicine. The database features coverage of more than 300 full-text titles and indexing for more than 375 publications. Searchable cited references are also provided. U-M user only.
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CDC Data and StatisticsCDC links to vital statistics and records, "Health, United States," and other statistics by topic.
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Policy Atlas (Harvard Catalyst)Provides comprehensive database info related to health policy and health data. Open to the public.
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Healthcare module, ProQuest Trends and PolicyU.S. federal government sources on healthcare, including legislation, reports, debates, cases and statistics along with news articles
Science and Technology
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Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) programResearch center at the U-M Ford School of Public Policy
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OSTP-authored reports and publicationsLibrary search results for items authored by OSTP. Goes up to 2025 only.
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DiscoverGovSearch for OSTP content using DiscoverGov, which searches across multiple U.S. Federal Government databases including GPO's Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) and GovInfo.
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NIH Office of Science PolicyWorks across the "biomedical research enterprise to ensure NIH policy evolves in tandem with rapidly advancing science and technology." Policy areas include artificial intelligence, health care, clinical research, data sharing and public access to research.
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RAND Corporation - science and technologyResearch and commentary on science and technology topics from the RAND think tank. Sub-topics include cybersecurity, AI, data science, communication technology and more.
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NSF Documents and ReportsReports, surveys and documents from the National Science Foundation
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OSTI.gov (Dept of Energy Office of Scienctific and Technical Information)Includes journal articles/accepted manuscripts and related metadata; technical reports; scientific research datasets and collections; scientific software; patents and more from DOE and its predecessor agencies.
Last Updated: Nov 4, 2025 2:56 PM
Subjects: Government, Politics & Law, Social Sciences