LILACS
Latin American and Caribbean health literature — the regional index PubMed misses.
At a Glance
- Publisher
- BIREME / PAHO / WHO
- Coverage
Health-sciences literature from Latin America and the Caribbean — journal articles, theses, and documents, much of it not indexed elsewhere (verify current counts).
- Access
Free and open; part of the Virtual Health Library (VHL).
- Free alternative
- It is free; PubMed and SciELO for overlap.
- Regional
The reference for Latin American and Caribbean health research.
Our Take
LILACS is essential for anyone doing comprehensive health research who can’t afford to miss Latin American and Caribbean scholarship — a region PubMed and Embase cover thinly. For systematic reviews aiming at true global coverage, searching LILACS (and SciELO) is how you avoid a North-Atlantic bias. The interface and multilingual search take some getting used to, and coverage is regional by design. Use it to capture regional health literature for a complete review; pair with PubMed and Embase for the global core.
Power Tips
- Add LILACS to any systematic review that claims global coverage to catch regional studies.
- Search in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English to surface more records.
- Combine with SciELO for fuller Latin American coverage.
Alternatives & Complements
SciELO, PubMed, Embase, Redalyc
Figures last verified: June 15, 2026