No additional analysis was used in this review. Results Guidance selection We retrieved 3370

citations from MEDLINE and 23 additional citations from the guideline development organisation websites, the International Journal for Equity in Health and emailing guideline development organisations. After removing duplicates inhibitor Veliparib and reviewing titles and abstracts, 3368 citations were excluded. By reviewing reference lists of the remaining 23 full-text articles, we obtained 12 relevant citations. In total, 35 potentially relevant full texts were screened, out of which 25 full-texts were excluded. The main reason for exclusion was that the focus of the papers was not on methods for addressing equity in CPGs. Finally, 8 studies with 10 publications19–21 26–32 were included in this review (figure 1). Figure 1 Selection process of included studies. Study characteristics Six studies19–21 26 27 31 were retrieved from MEDLINE, and four28–30 32

were identified from guideline development organisations’ websites. Only three studies19 21 26 defined equity issues according to different definitions.2 33 34 Included studies focused on different methodological topics related to equity including why,19 when,26 what26 and how19 20 26–32 CPG developers should address equity issues in CPGs, and how to assess the quality of CPGs, including equity,21 for CPG users. Five studies (from 7 publications)19 20 27–30 32 did not provide details of financial support. The characteristics of the included studies are provided in the table 1. Table 1 Characteristics of the included studies In terms of relevant information extracted and analysed, Keuken et al31 provided ‘Recommendation for focusing on sex-related factors in guideline development’; NICE28 29 provided ‘The protected characteristics’, ‘Equality in guideline development’, a ‘Checklist for scoping’, a ‘Checklist for early guideline development’ and a ‘Checklist for formulating recommendations’;

Dans et al21 provided ‘The equity lens’ to assess the Anacetrapib quality of guidelines including equity issues; targeting at on the WHO guidelines mainly, Oxman et al26 reviewed related articles to provide guidance to address equity in guidelines; Eslava-Schmalbach J et al19 described why equity issues should be addressed in guidelines; Acosta et al27 provided simple guidance for including equity in guidelines; Aldrich et al20 and NHMRC30 provided indicators and search terms for socioeconomic factors and a framework for using evidence on socioeconomic factors in the development of clinical practice guidelines; rather than focusing on equity issues in particular, the WHO32 provided advice on equity issues in its ‘PICO question components’ and evidence retrieval and synthesis’ sections.