Data Initiative for the Analysis of Racial/ Ethnic Health Inequalities in Latin American and Caribbean countries: Protocol for a series of Scoping Reviews

Background: Racial and ethnic health inequities are a public health concern from a range of structural societal conditions rooted in Racism. The collection of disaggregated race and ethnicity-based data is crucial to understand and appropriately address health inequities. Current data collection efforts remain incomplete and insufficiently widespread. In the Americas, the proportions of Afro-descendants are overrepresented in cardiovascular, maternal mortality and vector-borne diseases. There is limited evidence data on race, ethnicity, and health inequities regarding Latin American and the Caribbean region. Methods: To evaluate the use and scope of population-based race and ethnicity data in health literature. We present a protocol for a series of distinct but interconnected scoping reviews, in the context of racial health inequities across three major health outcomes including i) cardiovascular diseases, ii) maternal, infant, and neonatal mortality, and iii) vector-borne diseases in Latin American and the Caribbean countries between January 1, 2000, to June 30, 2023. Datasets include PubMed/Medline, Embase, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Global Health, Scopus, LILACS (Virtual Health Library), Web of Science databases and grey literature. We will include cross-sectional, cohort, case-control, surveillance-based, and ecological study designs that analyzed the relationship between race and ethnicity and the selected health outcomes, written in English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. This protocol is available on the Open Science Framework (Doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/PE35D). The scoping reviews follow the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology and the Arksey and O’Malley framework. Will be reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews Extension guidelines. Discussion: The series of scoping reviews will systematize and make available the current evidence regarding race and ethnicity inequities in the American and Caribbean region within the context of major health outcomes for a better recognition of knowledge gaps.Results will have critical implications for the documentation of the effect of Racism on health outcomes and shaping racial health inequities observed among these health outcomes, the designed and development of policy action to mitigate and eliminate racial health inequities in the Americas, promoting health equity by making of the invisible, visible.