Because their names are so similar, MedlinePlus and MEDLINE® are sometimes confused. However, these resources can help you find different kinds of health and medical information.
How are MedlinePlus and MEDLINE/PubMed different?
MedlinePlus:
- Online at MedlinePlus.gov
- A health information website for patients, their families and friends, and the general public
- Contains carefully selected links to online resources with authoritative health information on a broad range of health topics
- Read more about MedlinePlus
MEDLINE and PubMed®:
- Online at PubMed.gov
- The majority of journals are selected for MEDLINE based on the recommendation of the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee (LSTRC), an NIH-chartered advisory committee of external experts.
- MEDLINE is the main part of PubMed, an online, searchable, database of research literature in the biomedical and life sciences. PubMed includes links to many full-text journal articles via PubMed Central.
- Read more about MEDLINE and PubMed
How are MedlinePlus and MEDLINE/PubMed connected?
MedlinePlus and MEDLINE/PubMed are resources from the National Library of Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Although these resources provide different kinds of information, they are interconnected.
Health topic pages on MedlinePlus contain links to topic-specific searches of PubMed. These searches, which are created by medical librarians, can help you find references and abstracts for the latest articles in the professional biomedical literature.
A service called LinkOut provides links from PubMed to a wide range of additional information and resources, including pages on MedlinePlus that are related to particular journal citations.