Table 1.

Characteristics of included studies

Study	Geographic scope	Temporal scope	Outcome measures	Units of analysis	Convergence concept(s) included	Dispersion measure	Results
Stańczyk,34 2016	260 regions (NUTS 2) in 28 EU Member States (excluding outlier regions)	2002–12	LEB	NUTS 2 regions	Beta convergence	Not applicable	Convergence
Maynou and Saez,31 2016	271 regions (NUTS 2) in 27 EU Member States (excluding Croatia)	1995–2011	LEB and all-cause SMR	NUTS 2 regions	Beta and sigma convergence	Coefficient of variation	Both beta convergence analyses: convergence Both sigma convergence analyses: divergence
Maynou et al.,29 2015	271 regions (NUTS 2) in 27 EU Member States (excluding Croatia)	1995–2007	LEB	NUTS 2 regions	Beta and sigma convergence	Coefficient of variation	Convergence
Richardson et al.,32 2014	129 mainland regions (NUTS 2) in 13 EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland)	1991–2008	Sex-specific LEB	Deciles based on life expectancy and income	Sigma convergence	Interdecile range	Persistence
Jaworska,28 2014	265 regions (NUTS 2) in 28 EU Member States	2002–12	LEB	NUTS 2 regions	Beta convergence	Not applicable	Convergence
Marmot et al.,30 2013	28 EU Member States and 268 EU regions (NUTS 2)	2002–09, 2000–10	Sex-specific LEB	Member States, NUTS 2 regions	Sigma convergence	Range, ratio and Gini coefficient	Member States (2000–10), female LEB, Gini coefficient: convergence Other 13 analyses show persistence
Spinakis et al.,33 2011	27 EU Member States (excluding Croatia)	1997–2008	All-cause SMR for under 64 years of age	Member States	Sigma convergence	Interquartile and interdecile range, coefficient of variation, standard deviation of logs, Gini coefficient, Theil coefficient and Atkinson coefficient	Divergence in all 10 analyses

EU, European Union; LEB, life expectancy at birth; NUTS, nomenclature of territorial units for statistics; SMR, age- and sex-standardized mortality rate.