This looks very interesting and I really appreciate you chose to do your thesis on something meaningful!
I have only glanced through your thesis but I noted in the abstract you said how the correlation between excess deaths are ‘only moderate’. I think that makes sense given its just one variable in a complex overall system. One thing to consider—when looking at the plot of the preparedness scores with excess deaths, would be to put a kind of ‘expected’ or ‘predicted’ line on the basis of the simple correlation model. You can then also see more easily those countries that most buck the trend of what would be expected based upon the simple correlation. Some that stand out to me in the bottom left of that plot are Cyprus and Malta (both pretty small islands) and Luxembourg (a small and very rich country). This might help isolate other factors to consider that you could add to a multiple regression model. It seems possible that the preparedness scores could be more powerful when you are able to factor in other things. Apologies if you already mentioned things like this in your report and I’ve just glossed over them!
This looks very interesting and I really appreciate you chose to do your thesis on something meaningful!
I have only glanced through your thesis but I noted in the abstract you said how the correlation between excess deaths are ‘only moderate’. I think that makes sense given its just one variable in a complex overall system. One thing to consider—when looking at the plot of the preparedness scores with excess deaths, would be to put a kind of ‘expected’ or ‘predicted’ line on the basis of the simple correlation model. You can then also see more easily those countries that most buck the trend of what would be expected based upon the simple correlation. Some that stand out to me in the bottom left of that plot are Cyprus and Malta (both pretty small islands) and Luxembourg (a small and very rich country). This might help isolate other factors to consider that you could add to a multiple regression model. It seems possible that the preparedness scores could be more powerful when you are able to factor in other things. Apologies if you already mentioned things like this in your report and I’ve just glossed over them!