Addressing equity dimensions through the lens of rural proofing for health in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review protocol

Introduction: In the recent past, critical application and adoption of rural proofing policies to impact population health have been advocated in many countries. Rural proofing prioritizes rural mainstreaming, and champions and advocate the review of policies to ensure they reflect a rural outlook. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 83% of the rural population has no entitlements to health care while another 87% are excluded from access to health due to underfunding. Contemporary approaches have been adopted to address these inequities. This scoping review seeks to map evidence on equity dimensions of healthcare delivery through the lens of rural proofing for health in SSA. Methods and analysis: The scoping review will be reported using guidelines from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) and guidelines by JBI. For inclusion, studies must report sufficient details on rural proofing, highlight current systems or processes that allow for “thinking rural” for health policies, and provide information on how rural proofing can support in addressing equity for health among rural populations in SSA). We will conduct a comprehensive search in PubMed, Web of Science, Science Direct, CINAHL, Embase, the Cochrane library, and grey literature sources to identify relevant studies. The literature search will focus on publications in English within the period 2000 to 2022. The extracted data will be organized and collated for synthesis and analysis. We will use the narrative reporting format to summarize all the extracted data while describing its relation to our review objectives. Ethics and dissemination: The review does not involve primary data collection therefore ethical approval is not required. Dissemination of evidence from this review will be in two folds: to scientific and academic audiences and for policy and practice. For the scientific and academic audience, our findings will be shared in conference presentations and symposia across SSA and through a published peer review article. For policy and practice, summaries of the findings will be shared with relevant policy stakeholders and Ministries of Health departments in SSA via mail and through government representatives.