Efficient and flexible estimation of natural direct and indirect effects under intermediate confounding and monotonicity constraints.

ABSTRACT: Natural direct and indirect effects are mediational estimands that decompose the average treatment effect and describe how outcomes would be affected by contrasting levels of a treatment through changes induced in mediator values (in the case of the indirect effect) or not through induced changes in the mediator values (in the case of the direct effect). Natural direct and indirect effects are not generally point-identified in the presence of a treatment-induced confounder; however, they may be identified if one is willing to assume monotonicity between the treatment and the treatment-induced confounder. We argue that this assumption may be reasonable in the relatively common encouragement-design trial setting, where the intervention is randomized treatment assignment and the treatment-ind

SUBMITTER: Rudolph KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11037503 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature