• Vivian Welch, Mark Petticrew, Jennifer Petkovic, David Moher, Elizabeth Waters, Howard White, Peter Tugwell, and PRISMA-Equity Bellagio group.
• Bruyere Research Institute, University of Ottawa, 43 Bruyère Street, Annex E, Room 304, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 5C8, Canada. Electronic address: vivian.welch@uottawa.ca.
• J Clin Epidemiol. 2016 Feb 1; 70: 68-89.

BackgroundThe promotion of health equity, the absence of avoidable and unfair differences in health outcomes, is a global imperative. Systematic reviews are an important source of evidence for health decision makers but have been found to lack assessments of the intervention effects on health equity. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) is a 27-item checklist intended to improve transparency and reporting of systematic reviews. We developed an equity extension for PRISMA (PRISMA-E 2012) to help systematic reviewers identify, extract, and synthesize evidence on equity in systematic reviews.Methods And FindingsIn this explanation and elaboration article, we provide the rationale for each extension item. These items are additions or modifications to the existing PRISMA statement items, to incorporate a focus on equity. An example of good reporting is provided for each item as well as the original PRISMA item.ConclusionsThis explanation and elaboration document is intended to accompany the PRISMA-E 2012 statement and the PRISMA statement to improve understanding of the reporting guideline for users. The PRISMA-E 2012 reporting guideline is intended to improve transparency and completeness of reporting of equity-focused systematic reviews. Improved reporting can lead to better judgment of applicability by policy makers which may result in more appropriate policies and programs and may contribute to reductions in health inequities.Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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