Best practices to communicate children’s environmental health: a scoping review protocol

Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to map and synthesize existing literature on strategies used to communicate children’s environmental health science to diverse audiences, with particular attention to communication directed at policymakers. Eligibility criteria: This review will include published literature focused on how scientists communicate children’s environmental health science to policymakers, practitioners, non-governmental organizations, civil society actors, think tanks, and government agencies. The core concept encompasses science communication, knowledge translation, and evidence-informed policymaking as applied to children’s environmental health, including chemical exposures, pollution, climate-related health impacts, and other environmental hazards. The review will include communication of CEH science directed at subnational, national, and international policy contexts and will exclude literature focused exclusively on adult populations, individual-level behavioral recommendations without a communication or policy component, and primary environmental health research without a dissemination component. Methods: MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, CINAHL (EBSCO), Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection will be searched from inception without date or language restrictions. Titles, abstracts, and full texts will be screened by two independent reviewers using Covidence. Data will be extracted using a piloted instrument and analyzed using descriptive numerical summaries and descriptive qualitative content analysis.