Despite the well-established benefits of regular physical activity, only a small percentage of African American (AA) women meet national physical activity guidelines. This population faces unique cultural, social and environmental determinants that contribute to low participation rates. In response, various interventions have been developed to promote physical activity. While individual studies and reviews have examined these interventions, the evidence remains fragmented and of inconsistent quality. An umbrella review, or a review of reviews, provides a comprehensive method for summarising this body of literature. This protocol outlines the methods for conducting an umbrella review of physical activity interventions targeting AA women living in the USA.

A comprehensive search will be conducted in the Web of Science Core Collection, Social Sciences Full Text, SportDiscus, CINAHL, PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Evidence Synthesis, grey literature and relevant reference lists. Eligible articles published in English through September 2025 will be screened independently by >2 reviewers. Data extraction, analysis and quality assessment will follow. The AMSTAR 2 (A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews 2) and JBI recommendations for umbrella reviews will be used to assess methodological quality. The Corrected Covered Area will be used to characterise the overlap of primary studies across reviews.

This umbrella review synthesises published data and does not involve human subjects, so ethics approval is not required. We will follow established guidance and best practice for transparency and integrity in evidence synthesis. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, community-partner briefs, open materials (eg, search strategies and data extraction templates) and in an Open Science Framework repository.

Few studies have examined how psychosocial risk and protective factors in adolescence shape mental health outcomes and other multimorbid conditions in adulthood, particularly among Canadian youth. The Research on Eating and Adolescent Lifestyle (REAL) 2.0 study was a 15-year follow-up cohort study designed to investigate how early etiological factors, including body image and disordered eating symptoms in adolescence, contribute to the development of eating, weight-related concerns, mental health and substance use health problems in early adulthood. In this paper, we describe the REAL 2.0 cohort’s demographic and clinical characteristics alongside an overview of the study procedures, laying the groundwork for collaboration on future learnings with this unique data.

The cross-sectional REAL study initially surveyed middle and high school students from 2004 to 2010 (n=3043) across 43 schools in the Ottawa, Canada region. Of those, respondents in grade 7 or 9 (n=1197 from 25 of the 43 original schools) were asked to participate in a longitudinal arm of the study that consisted of yearly follow-ups. From the longitudinal cohort, there were 278 participants (29.1% male; M_age=28.6) from those who consented to be re-contacted (n=912), who completed the REAL 2.0 survey electronically (30.4%), providing comprehensive data on demographic, clinical, eating and weight-related behaviour, psychological, social, environmental and substance use health factors in adulthood.

9.4% of REAL 2.0 participants met DSM-5 criteria for an eating disorder, while 17.6% met criteria for disordered eating. Moderate to severe anxiety was reported by 28% of participants, while 21.6% experienced moderate to severe depressive symptoms. Regarding substance use, 16.9% engaged in hazardous drinking, 16.9% used cannabis daily or almost daily, and 4.3% reported daily tobacco use.

REAL 2.0 has the potential to answer multiple research questions about several mental health outcomes, but its priority focus is to answer questions related to risk and protective factors of multimorbidity in adulthood. Additionally, profiling work, linked to health service utilisation data for systems planning work and predictive modelling studies are secondary goals. By leveraging the Health Data Nexus (HDN) platform, we welcome collaboration with interested researchers who would like to utilise the breadth of data both in adolescence and adulthood to answer other pertinent aetiological questions in mental health and substance use health outcomes. Future plans to conduct additional follow-ups remain feasible.

Perineal trauma is one of the most common complications of childbirth, impacting approximately 9 out of 10 women who undergo a vaginal delivery. Perineal trauma is a public health issue leading to increased maternal morbidity and decreased quality of life. Although race is being studied as a potential risk factor and predictor of perineal trauma, other contributing factors like racism and social determinants of health have not been adequately studied in the same context. We set out to synthesise the available peer-reviewed evidence evaluating the prognostic association between race and perineal trauma.

This systematic review and meta-analysis adheres to the PRISMA-P (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols) and PROGRESS (Prognosis Research Strategy) guidelines and is registered with PROSPERO. The review explores the association between racial status (non-Hispanic white vs non-white) and perineal birth trauma using the PECOTS (Population, Intervention/Exposure, Comparator, Outcome, Timing and Setting) framework. We will search PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science and Embase. Peer-reviewed observational studies will be included. Data extraction and screening will be done in duplicate. Analyses will use random-effects models in R, reporting both unadjusted and adjusted risk differences. Risk of bias will be assessed using ROBINS-I (Risk of Bias in Non-randomised Studies of Interventions). Heterogeneity and certainty of evidence will be evaluated using I² and GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation), respectively.

This is a systematic review based on previously published data, and therefore ethical approval is not required. The findings of this review will be disseminated through publication in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at academic conferences.

CRD42025590093.