Assessing public support for extending smoke-free policies beyond enclosed public places and workplaces: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis 61 3 in the broadest sense and are not necessarily enacted via formal legislation as this will allow us to evaluate less formal local smoke-free initiatives (e.g. selfregulation by the hospitality sector or local hospitals) as well as formal legislation. Eligibility criteria We will include articles published in scientific journals as well as ‘grey literature’ evaluating public support for novel smoke-free policies covering (semi)private places and (partially) outdoor spaces, whether public or (semi) private. Grey literature includes policy documents and reports that are published noncommercially and/or are not indexed by major scientific literature databases. Cohort studies and (repeated) cross-sectional studies will be included and no language restrictions are applied. Qualitative studies will be excluded. We will seek translation for reports in foreign languages to assess eligibility. Studies for which only an abstract is available will not be included since risk of bias for these studies cannot be adequately assessed. Eligibility of the studies will be assessed using the following criteria: 1. Studies will be eligible if support for one or more novel smoke-free policies is evaluated. We will include studies assessing support for novel smokefree policies that are already in place as well as those assessing support for upcoming or theoretical implementation of such policies. Policies at any level are eligible, such as city-level, state-level, country level etc. Studies will be excluded if solely evaluating traditional smoke-free legislation.23 2. Studies will be eligible if they assessed public support for smoke-free policies in the population aged 16 years or above who represent the majority of a population primarily affected by the policy (e.g. support for a country wide measure is evaluated in a representative sample of the country, while support for a policy at a local campus is assessed among students and staff of that specific campus), or in any of the predefined population subgroups (see within-study determinants of public support below). We set this age criterion to include the part of the population that is entitled to vote in most democracies, and as such may be regarded to be of particular interest to politicians and policymakers. Any study reporting (sub)populations in which at least 50% fits this age criterion will also be included. 3. Our primary objective is to summarise the level of public support for novel smoke free policies in the general population, therefore we will only include
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