Table 4 Additional sample excerpts demonstrating the interchanged use of health inequities and inequalities

• “inequalities in health in urban settings reflect, to a great extent, inequities in economic, social and living conditions” [21]

• “economic inequalities are often associated with health inequalities” [21]

• “health inequity leads to a gradient of inequalities in most societies at all levels of economic development” [21]

• “current and emerging eco-friendly approaches to town planning, housing design and workplace developments need to be systematically applied in order to minimize health inequalities in the future” [21]

• “it has been argued that the relatively stringent alcohol policies of the Nordic countries have contributed to holding down health inequalities there” [22]

• “a comparison of the two largest cities, Tokyo and Osaka, revealed that over half of the 23 wards that form the urban core of Tokyo have lower levels of mortality than the national average; in contrast, only one of the 24 wards in Osaka had lower levels of mortality than the national average. The range in ward-level mortality was also much wider in Osaka than in Tokyo. These examples illustrate place-based inequalities” [27]

• “there was a consistent pattern of inequality in total mortality in almost all cities, with mortality increasing in parallel with socioeconomic deprivation” [27]

• “inequalities in skilled birth attendance” [27]

• “relative inequalities in access to piped water are particularly high. Households in the richest quintile are 2.7 times more likely to have access to piped water compared to the poorest 20% households” [27]

• “it is difficult to isolate the contribution of the programme to observed declines in excess winter deaths and child accidents in the home, given the large number of other projects tackling poverty and health inequalities in the city” [27]

• “the UHI is a single, composite metric that can be used to measure and map the inequalities in health determinants and outcomes in urban areas” [27]

• “addressing food safety inequities involves evaluating the effectiveness of interventions in reducing inequalities in food safety” [22]