Table 2 Coding scheme and abbreviations.

Coding dimensions		Explanations		Abbreviations
Citation/location		• Surname of first author and year of publication; country where study undertaken.		Studies reporting data for both SRH and CVD risk factors indicated by asterisks.
Health indicator/analytic variable		• Self rated health: How would you describe your overall state of health: excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor?• Risk factors for CVD: physical activity, diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index, overweight and obesity, diabetes, hypertension.• Mortality: all cause and cause specific mortality where individual level data available.• Analytic variable: treatment of the outcome variable was treated.		BMI, body mass index; CVD, cardiovascular disease; CHD: coronary heart disease; HBP, high blood pressure; N'hood, neighbourhood; PA, physical activity.Analytical variables: dichotomous/binomial, 0/1; ordinal/ordered categorical, ord; continuous, cont.
Design/year of data collection (individual level)		• Cross sectional, longitudinal (follow up), or case–control research design.• Year of data collection at the individual level.
Sample size individuals (sex/age range)		• Sample size of individual data (full dataset) and sex distribution and age in years (y) range of the sample.		y, year
				NR, not reported
Individual characteristicsadjusted for		• Individual level characteristics adjusted for in multilevel models.		A, age; E, education; ES, employment status (eg, employed, unemployed, retired); I, income; MS, marital status; N'hood, neighbourhood; OS, occupational status (type of work, eg blue collar, professional); PA, physical activity; R/E, race/ethnicity; S, sex; SC, social class; SES, socioeconomic status; SN, social network/support. All other characteristics are nominally identified.
Sample size of areas		• Sample size and operational definition of areas
Area level exposures		• Area level exposure and type—ie, whether they are derived/aggregated from individual level data (eg, census data), or integral—ie, only measurable at the area level (eg, number of parks).		d, Derived variable
				i, Integral variable
				N'hood, neighbourhood
Crude between‐area variation		• Significant between‐area variation unadjusted for individual level characteristics unless otherwise specified.• Reported by variance component and standard error, intraclass correlation coefficient for continuous and dichotomous outcomes, and plausible value range; all others are nominally identified.		ICC, intraclass correlation coefficient; p, p value; SE, standard error; PP, predicted probability; PVR, plausible value range; VC, variance component; NR, not reported; Sign, significant; NS, not significant; SNR, significance not reported.
		(Note: variance component is significant when >1.96 * SE).
Adjusted between‐area variation		• Significant between‐area variation adjusted for individual level characteristics unless otherwise specified.		Same as above
		Same as above
Significant adjusted area effects		• Significant area effects on health in models adjusting for individual and area level variables (final models) unless otherwise specified.• Cross level interaction: differential area effects across subgroup of individuals. In some cases, authors reported the association of an individual effect on a health indicator in a subset of areas. This was also considered to be a cross level interaction.• Area level interaction: differential effect of an area exposure on a health outcome conditional on another area exposure.