Table 1 Inclusion/exclusion criteria

Year published

2010 to 2021

Before 2010

Language

English

Non-English

Study type

Empirical studies: intervention studies (RCTs, quasi-experimental, etc.); observational studies (cohort, case–control, cross-sectional, case-crossover, ecologic, case series, case reports); qualitative studies; ^areviews (systematic, scoping), meta-analyses

Studies must pertain to humans; may be conducted in any country

Non-empirical studies (e.g., commentary or debate papers, editorials, letter to the editor)

Study of animals, cells, or other non-human subjects

Chronic disease (per CDC list of chronic diseases and associated risk/prevention factors [60, 61])

Primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention, screening, maintenance, treatment, and/or survivorship in any of these chronic conditions: heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, chronic kidney condition, obesity

Chronic disease risk/prevention topics: physical activity, diet/ nutrition, alcohol use, tobacco use; include even if not referenced in connection to a specific chronic disease listed above

Include across lifespan from birth to end of life (e.g., breastfeeding in the context of chronic disease prevention)

Include other conditions not listed above if studied in conjunction with eligible chronic disease or prevention topic (e.g., HIV/AIDS and heart disease; diet/nutrition, obesity, and depression)

Any non-health related topic (e.g., management practices in tech firms, environmental sustainability study that does not mention human health)

Condition not on CDC chronic disease list and not paired with a condition on the list (e.g., standalone studies of HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, depression)

Prevention topic other than the four listed (e.g., sun protection, safe needle exchange)

Health equity

Authors may communicate intentionality to study health equity in one or more ways:

• Using key search terms in a context relevant to health (e.g., equity, justice, social determinants, racism)

• Having equity-relevant aims/hypotheses/research questions (e.g., evaluating the impact of a nutrition policy to improve equitable access to healthy school meals)

• Involving affected communities to redistribute power more fairly (e.g., advocacy groups, neighborhood residents involved in obesity prevention study design and execution)

• Intervening to eliminate or overcome social or structural barriers to better health (e.g., multi-level intervention to improve accessibility of physical environment for people with mobility limitations)

• Targeting an intervention towards a historically marginalized population and designing/adapting it to meet their needs/preferences (e.g., adapting a cancer screening program to improve access, linguistic and cultural concordance among rural migrant farmworkers)

• Studying disparities affecting a historically marginalized population and a structural determinant of the disparity (e.g., education policy examined as a potential cause of asthma disparities in Black vs. White populations)

Relevant terms used in a different context (e.g., discrimination in measurement)

Eligible chronic disease or prevention topic without a health equity focus

Equity mentioned in secondary nature (e.g., health equity implications only in mentioned as future directions)

Study within a historically marginalized population without consideration of health equity or related concepts (e.g., scale out of a cancer screening intervention tested in a high SES suburban population to a rural migrant farmworker population without adapting to better fit needs)

Disparities studies that do not consider potential or known causes (e.g., type 2 diabetes prevalence by race/ethnicity stratified by SES, without assessing causes of disparities, such as racial residential segregation or discrimination)

Disparities studies that examine individual-level manifestations of a structural cause of inequity (e.g., correlating individual educational attainment with asthma disparities in Black vs. white populations)

Health equity framework or model (FM; added at full-text screening)

Study describes or visually displays (via table, figure, or image) a FM that includes constructs conceptualized as being related to health equity AND there is clear application of the health equity FM (e.g., FM concepts appear in study aims, identification of intervention target, design of intervention components, target population and sampling, co-creation of interventions or research studies with impacted communities, selection of equity-relevant objectives, metrics, or outcomes; authors describe how FM was incorporated into study)

No FM referenced; FM not related to health equity; term used in a different context (e.g., statistical model)

FM referenced, but not operationalized in the study (i.e., no clear application of the FM in aims, intervention components, sampling, measurement, or selected outcomes)