NIH Public Access Policy Information for Researchers
What is a PMCID?
A PMCID is a PubMed Central reference number. Clicking on a PMCID link on our publications pages will take you to the article's PubMed Central record where you can access full text.
PubMed Central is the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. Articles in the archive may be final published articles submitted by journal publishers, or they may be peer-reviewed manuscripts submitted by the authors. The manuscripts are not the final published version of the paper because they have not gone through the final editing process.
The NIH requires all peer-reviewed articles resulting from NIH-funded research to be deposited in PubMed Central as part of its Public Access Policy.
How to include a PMCID in a citation
Example:
Staff, J.A., & Mortimer, J.T. (2008). Social class background and the school-to-work transition. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 119, 55-69. PMCID: PMC2302830
What is an NIHMSID?
An NIHMSID is a National Institutes of Health Manuscript Submission System reference number. The number indicates that a manuscript has been submitted to PubMed Central in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy, but that the full text is not yet available.
If the article is published (not "in press"), you can access the full text from the journal. Contact your local library for assistance.
Once the full text of a paper is available in PubMed Central, a PMCID should be used in place of the NIHMSID.
How to include an NIHMSID in a citation
Example:
Stamps, K., Booth, A., & King, V. (in press). Adolescents with nonresident fathers: Are daughters more disadvantaged than sons? Journal of Marriage and Family. NIHMSID: NIHMS98849