Table 1.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion	Exclusion
Adults from the age of 19	Youths and children up to and including 18
Interventions where people walk as part of a defined walking group intervention	Studies that do not involve a walking group intervention, eg, they walk with a physiotherapist
Where the walking is group based, or where the walking is predominantly group based but participants may also walk on their own to supplement this	Participants walking only rarely in groups, or walking on their own, such as home-based or pedometer-based programmes with no group walking
Walking outdoors or walking predominantly outdoors but occasionally indoors (eg, inside tracks or shopping malls for weather reasons)	Walking indoors or predominantly indoors
Studies that compare group walking with group Nordic walking where group walking can be isolated as an intervention and the outcome directly related to group walking	Studies examining Nordic walking only
Studies with physiological, psychological or well-being outcomes such as blood profiles (eg, lipids, HbA1c), cardiovascular measures (eg, BP), psychological (eg, Beck depression inventory), well-being (eg, EQ5D)	Studies where the outcomes are solely physical activity such as step outcomes or logs of physical activity
Studies where the outcome can directly be related to the walking group intervention	Studies with a mixed intervention (eg, walking with calcium supplements or walking combined with a health education intervention) where the outcome cannot be isolated and directly attributed to group walking
Papers and documents written in English	Papers and documents not written in English