Table 1.

Explanatory variables

	Data type	Description	Source	Notes
Region
Geographical region	Categorical	Seven world regions: East Asia & Pacific, Europe & Central Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East & North Africa, North America, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa	World Bank	The most widely used regional classifications in global health are those compiled by WHO and World Bank; we opted for the regional classification used by World Bank because it provides extra detail by breaking the Americas into two regions: North America and Latin America & Caribbean
Non-communicable disease burden
Percentage of deaths caused by non-communicable diseases	Continuous	Percentage of all deaths caused by non-communicable diseases	WHO non-communicable disease Progress Monitor	We used the WHO estimates of the proportion of overall deaths caused by non-communicable diseases and the risk of premature non-communicable disease mortality from the 2015 progress monitor to examine whether baseline non-communicable disease burden was associated with the 2017 score and change in score over time
Risk of premature non-communicable disease mortality	Continuous	Risk of premature non-communicable disease mortality	··	We used the WHO estimates of the proportion of overall deaths caused by non-communicable diseases and the risk of premature non-communicable disease mortality from the 2015 progress monitor to examine whether baseline non-communicable disease burden was associated with the 2017 score and change in score over time
Human and financial resources
Human capital index	Continuous	Composite indicator combining child mortality, stunting, adult survival, expected years of schooling, and harmonised educational test scores	World Bank	We obtained the latest available, 2017 World Bank human capital index scores for each country; a widely used composite measure based on child mortality, stunting, adult survival, expected years of schooling, and harmonised educational test scores
World Bank income group	Ordinal	World Bank income group based on per-capita gross national income (low <US$1045; lower-middle <$4125; upper-middle <$12736; high >$12736)	World Bank	We used the 2017 World Bank analytic classification; this assigns each country to one of four ordinal income groups based on per-capita gross national income
Political ideology and social solidarity
Democracy index	Continuous	Weighted average of 60 items covering civil liberties, pluralism, and political culture	Economist Intelligence Unit	We obtained the latest available, 2017 democracy index data from the Economist Intelligence Unit; these annually produced scores are based on a weighted average of 60 items covering civil liberties, pluralism, and political culture; the scores are well-respected and have been previously used in global health research to analyse access to services
Tax burden	Ordinal	Top, second, third, bottom, and missing data; tripartite composite score with equal weighting accorded to top marginal tax rate on individual income, the top marginal tax rate on corporate income, and the total tax burden as a percentage of GDP	Heritage Foundation	We obtained latest available, 2016 tax burden data from the Heritage Foundation to help distinguish between highly democratic countries that lie on opposing ends of an ideological spectrum that ranges from valuing social solidarity to valuing self-determination (libertarianism); we reasoned that countries that tolerate high top marginal tax rates on individuals and corporations might be more likely to tolerate non-communicable disease policies that constrain free trade and personal choice; the Heritage Foundation is a US think tank with a (right-of-centre) political bias, however their tax burden data are widely respected, transparently composed, and available for many countries