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Additional file 1: Fig. S1. Percentage of people with different postcodes in GP records and 2011 Census by age group. Fig. S2. Directed acyclic graph of the hypothesised relationship between ethnicity and COVID-19 mortality. Table S1. Rates and odds ratios of linkage failure between the 2011 Census and 2011 to 2013 NHS Patient Registers for people living in England at the 2011 Census who were aged 30-100 years in 2020, by sex, age group, ethnicity, region and IMD decile. Table S2. Coding and source of variables included in the analysis. Table S3. Weighted mean follow-up time in days by ethnic groups for wave two and wave three. Table S4. Age-standardised mortality rates (ASMRs) of death involving COVID-19 (8 December 2020 to 1 December 2021) for disaggregated ‘White other’ and ‘Other’ ethnic groups.

This Master’s Thesis takes the perspective of an outsider, observing the worldwide dominance of American culture, and the negative stereotypes many hold against America as a result. Wondering how American culture could become so dominant if all that comes from America is so negative however, the thesis seems to get to know America better through some of its greatest literature and through an exploration of the concept known as ‘The American Dream’. Establishing a focus and criteria for the selection of the optimal material, the first major part of the paper takes an in depth view of the historical development of the idea of the American Dream. Having gotten acquainted with the Dream and its roots in historical reality, the reader can then progress along with the author, in comparing gathered knowledge of the Dream with its manifestation in canonical works of American literature First F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is examined, and interpreted through a variety of critical essays. The focus is on the story and of how it casts the characters as different dreamers of the Dream and of how it sees them live in accordance with or in spite of their dreams. The paper observes the importance of America’s mobilization for World War I as an influence for the author and his characters Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby, just as it examines Gatsby as an example of the common American Dream of rising from humble beginnings and turning yourself from a nobody into a somebody. Secondly, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is analysed, finding Steinbeck’s story somewhere in between old-fashioned American Dreams of free families of farmers and comparisons to communist ideals. The biblical symbolism in the voyage of the Joad family is discussed, as is the peculiarly sudden and gloomy choice of ending for the story, as the paper observes the struggle between hard individualism and the need for a sense of community during the depression in Steinbeck’s epic. Finally, jumping to the other side of World War II, the thesis follows Jack Kerouac’s character Salvatore Paradise, as he travels the width of the American continent several times in On The Road. The idea of the American high way system being a new frontier for freedom-seekers is explored, as is the need that Kerouac and his contemporaries show for escaping the suffocation of individuality brought along by the conformity of normal society. Questions of individual freedom in opposition to living in accordance with one’s surroundings are discussed and compared to similar questions from The Grapes of Wrath, and Sal Paradise is compared to Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway in the way both are fascinated with the naïve pursuit of dreams undertaken by Dean Moriarty and Jay Gatsby. Finally, the thesis sums up its findings and the most interesting discussions and juxtapositions and attempts a bird’s eye view of the knowledge gathered about America, its Dream and the virtue and value that allows it to make American culture such a fascinating source of inspiration to the rest of the world.