Table 1 Search strategy

Databases/publishers/

Search engines

PubMed: 86 peer reviewed articles; Cochrane Library: 23; ScienceDirect: 29; Dimensions: 34; Taylor and Francis: 72; Chicago Journals: 17; Emerald Insight: 34; JSTOR: 95 and Google Scholar: 133

Language filter

English

Time filter

1 January 2010–31 December 2023

Spatial filter

Africa

MeSH terms used

“Health policy*” OR “Health politics*” OR “Africa developing countries” OR “Policy making*” OR “Health Care reforms/organisation & administration” OR “Health care sector/standards” OR “Leadership” OR “Evidence-Based Medicine” OR “Public Health” OR “Public policy” OR “Sub-Saharan Africa” OR “Health promotion/ trends”

Inclusion criteria

(1) Peer-reviewed articles (PRAs) on Africa; (2) PRAs on politics–evidence conflict in national health policy-making and written in the English Language, covering 1 January 2010–31 December 2023; (3) PRAs must provide details on the author(s), purpose/aim, methods/setting, nature of politics–evidence conflict, type of health policy, consequences of politics–evidence conflict and conclusion/recommendation

Exclusion criteria

(1) Media reports; (2) grey literature; (3) PRAs published before 1 January 2010 and after 31 December 2023; (4) PRAs outside of Africa; (5) articles devoid of details on author(s), purpose/aim, methods/setting, nature of politics-evidence conflict, type of health policy, consequences of politics–evidence conflict and conclusion/recommendation; (6) reviewed articles and (7) articles with a low-quality rating