Status report -- Identifying equity-focussed interventions to promote healthy weights

We developed screening criteria to identify population health interventions with an equity focus for inclusion on the Public Health Agency of Canada's Canadian Best Practices Portal. We applied them to the area of "healthy weights," specifically, obesity prevention.

We conducted a review of the literature and obtained input from expert external reviewers on changes to midstream environments. Interventions had to identify outcomes for groups with an underlying social disadvantage. We included papers with a focus on equity and vulnerable populations, intervention and/or evaluation studies, social determinants of health and healthy weights or obesity prevention. We then appraised the shortlisted studies for quality of evidence to determine eligibility for inclusion as promising practices on the Canadian Best Practices Portal.

Few of the references reviewed passed the equity screening criteria (26 out of 2823 published papers reviewed, or 0.9%). Six (of the 26) interventions qualified as promising practices.

The ability of the equity screening criteria to distinguish midstream-level interventions for obesity prevention suggests that the criteria have potential to be applied to other public health topics. What is most important about our work is that the Portal, which is no longer being updated but is still accessible, was broadened to include interventions with a focus on equity.