A scoping review establishes need for consensus guidance on reporting health equity in observational studies

Objectives: To evaluate the support from the available guidance on reporting of health equity in research for our candidate items and to identify additional items for the Strengthening Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology -Equity extension.Study Design and Setting: We conducted a scoping review by searching Embase, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane Methodology Reg-ister, LILACS, and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information up to January 2022. We also searched reference lists and gray liter-ature for additional resources. We included guidance and assessments (hereafter termed resources) related to conduct and/or reporting for any type of health research with or about people experiencing health inequity. Results: We included 34 resources, which supported one or more candidate items or contributed to new items about health equity re-porting in observational research. Each candidate item was supported by a median of six (range: 1-15) resources. In addition, 12 resources suggested 13 new items, such as report the background of investigators.Conclusion: Existing resources for reporting health equity in observational studies aligned with our interim checklist of candidate items. We also identified additional items that will be considered in the development of a consensus-based and evidence-based guideline for reporting health equity in observational studies. & COPY; 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study aims to evaluate the support from existing guidance on reporting health equity in research and identify additional items. A total of 34 resources were included, which supported candidate items and contributed to new items. The existing resources aligned with the candidate items and additional items were identified for the development of a guideline. Rating: 7 out of 10.