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Controlled vocabulary for public health publications

I am working on the eClearance and repository system for publications at the CDC. As part of the metadata schema we would like to have a keyword controlled vocabulary. There was a valiant effort to create a Controlled Health Thesaurus (CHT) at CDC but I am afraid that it is no longer viable as a controlled vocabulary. I have considered using MeSH but it does have its public health limitations. I am considering a hybrid system of MeSH with open text box that users could enter keywords in if they did not find an appropriate keyword in MeSH. Does anyone have any advice for using an amalgamation of controlled vocabulary and folksonomy? I plan on tracking the folksonomy keywords and if I find a pattern I would submit those words to NLM.

Any advice would be appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Sundak Ganesan on January 20, 2010 at 10:33am: Hi Robert,
CDC CHT has added several public health terms and provided mapping to the standard terminologies and UMLS. CDC CHT application was mainly created to tag the CDC webpages. We are in the process of discussing with CHT team as well as NLM (MeSH team) to incorporate many of the CHT public health terms in MeSH.

CHT also had several consumer health vocabulary terms to support the CDC webpage search. We may need to submit some of the consumer health vocabulary terms to NLM - MedlinePlus.

Please free to call me at 678-358-4275. We could discuss in detail about your requirements.

CDC Vocabulary team works very closely with National Library of Medicine and could also arrange for a conference call with NLM later.

Thanks
Sundak Ganesan, MD
Lead CDC Vocabulary Specialist
CDC Vocabulary & Messaging Team
Northrop Grumman consultant to CDC / OSELS
Tel: 678-358-4275
E-mail: dsq3@cdc.gov; ▶ Reply to This

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