Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Eligible publications for the inclusion of this scoping review are studies or reports which were conducted on the Vietnamese population without pre-existing health conditions (pregnant, hypertension, overweight, etc.). Surveys conducted specifically on minority populations or conducted outside of Vietnam were excluded. The included materials must report statistics on at least one of major behavioral risk factors that is relevant to this study (smoking, alcohol use, physical activity, diet-related risk factors) as original research or literature reviews. Studies that were included must also report data from a national or subnational representative sample of the entire Vietnamese population or its findings are representative for the specific demographic settings (rural/urban). Studies with a small sample size (preferably to be at least 1000) or study findings which could not be generalized to a larger scale of population, were excluded following the recommendation of Hoy et al. (2013) and Nethan et al (2017). Since there is a lack of population-based research on dietary behaviors among the Vietnamese population, this study focuses on salt intake and the consumption of fruits and vegetables. Excess intake of salt and low consumption of fruits and vegetables represents dietary related risk factors which follow the NCD Global Monitoring Framework adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2012 (UN General Assembly, 2012).