It’s the most wonderful time of the year!!

Well, perhaps that’s a bit of an over-exaggeration, but it’s exciting nonetheless! The National Library of Medicine has released its annual list of MeSH changes, including highly anticipated NEW MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) terms for 2021!

The list covers a variety of changes and updates made to MeSH, including:

• Updated terms — these are MeSH terms that have been deleted, changed, or replaced to reflect more updated terminology
  • 14 terms were updated for 2021
• New terms — these are brand new MeSH terms added
  • 277 terms were added for 2021
• Special projects — new terms added in specific subject areas to address needs
  • New behavioral and social science headings
  • New cardiovascular headings
  • New food/beverage headings
  • New infection headings
  • New organism headings
  • New persons headings

One important thing to remember is how to modify saved searches to account for the changes made to MeSH, as the changes will take place in mid-December 2020 and newly indexed citations will be reflective of these changes.

COVID-19 and its impact on MeSH

It makes sense that COVID-19 has been the cause of many of the changes going into 2021. From the onset of the pandemic, NLM was adding supplementary concepts (SCRs) throughout the year to include important concepts to help navigate the large amount of COVID-19 literature, but these supplementary concepts have limited functionality. So with 2021, NLM has announced an entire suite of COVID-19 and SARS-Cov2 related MeSH terms.

Some notable new terms related to the pandemic:

• COVID-19 — was a supplementary concept, now promoted to MeSH term
• SARS-CoV-2 — was a supplementary concept, now promoted to MeSH term
• COVID-19 Testing — was supplementary concept (Covid-19 diagnostic testing), now promoted to MeSH term
• COVID-19 Serological Testing — previously mapped to COVID-19 diagnostic testing
• COVID-19 Nucleic Acid Testing — previously mapped to COVID-19 diagnostic testing
• Physical Distancing — previously mapped to “Social Distancing”, now differentiated as “Psychological Distancing” and “Physical Distancing”
• Teleworking — new MeSH term
• Return to School — new MeSH term
• N95 Respirators — new MeSH term
• Disease Hotspots — new MeSH term
• Chain of Infection — new MeSH term

Still using PubMed Legacy? Please make moves to switch to New PubMed this month!

NLM has committed to providing access to legacy PubMed through October 31, 2020. The retirement date for legacy PubMed will be communicated in advance via banners on the legacy site. However, the sooner the better for switching over.

You can continue to find legacy PubMed at https://pmlegacy.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ until it is retired.

If you have not become familiar with New PubMed, which became the default platform in September, be sure to check it out soon!

For questions regarding the transition from PubMed Legacy to New PubMed, please see the NLM’s New PubMed Transition FAQ’s.

You can also attend one of the MSK Library’s New PubMed workshops to learn about searching PubMed and the new features it includes.

Global Data:

• World Health Organization WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard
  • Visualized data at the regional and country level of cases and deaths
• Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center
  • Aggregated and analyzed data on tracking and testing for every country

US Data:

• CDC COVID Data Tracker
  • Visualized data at the state and county level of total cases and deaths as well as trends
  • Visualized data at the state level of cumulative testing
• Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center
  • Aggregated and analyzed data and reports on tracking and testing at the state and county level
• New York Times COVID-19 Data
  • Downloadable raw data
  • County, state, and national level data
  • Live and historical data of confirmed and probable cases and deaths

New York State Data:

• NYSDOH COVID-19 Tracker
  • Visualized data on cases, testing and fatality by county
• New York State Statewide COVID-19 Testing
  • Downloadable raw data on testing and cases, both new and cumulative by county

New York City Data:

• NYC Health Coronavirus Data
  • Downloadable raw data on COVID-19 testing, cases, and deaths
  • Break data down by borough, poverty, age group, gender, race, and zip code
• NYC Health COVID-19 Data
  • Visualized data on cases, deaths, hospitalizations, and testing
  • Historical data