This preliminary study attempted to determine the most effective search strategies for the topic "health effects" in relation to specific chemicals and/or pollutants--in this case, asbestos--for each of five selected Lockheed DIALOG data bases: BIOSIS Previews, Chemical Abstracts Condensates (Chemcon), NTIS, Enviroline, and Pollution Abstracts. Strategies were developed, searches run, results calculated, and strategies synthesized for the larger data bases--BIOSIS, Chemcon, and NTIS. Strategies were developed for Enviroline and Pollution Abstracts by selecting possible search terms/codes from relevant citations, testing hypothetical search strategies for recall and precision, and then synthesizing these strategies. All citations from each data base search were evaluated for relevance and precision was calculated. Following data analysis, the study recommended basic health effects strategies for each data base. Trends ascertained in searching these data bases by testing with asbestos showed that codes work well in BIOSIS; Chemcon and NTIS require a combination of codes and words; words alone or codes and words together could be used in Enviroline, and Pollution Abstracts require all words whose identities can be pinpointed. A list of user aids, bibliography, tables, and illustrations are included. (Author/KP)