Practical causal mediation analysis: extending nonparametric estimators to accommodate multiple mediators and multiple intermediate confounders.

ABSTRACT: Mediation analysis is appealing for its ability to improve understanding of the mechanistic drivers of causal effects, but real-world data complexities challenge its successful implementation, including (i) the existence of post-exposure variables that also affect mediators and outcomes (thus, confounding the mediator-outcome relationship), that may also be (ii) multivariate, and (iii) the existence of multivariate mediators. All three challenges are present in the mediation analysis we consider here, where our goal is to estimate the indirect effects of receiving a Section 8 housing voucher as a young child on the risk of developing a psychiatric mood disorder in adolescence that operate through mediators related to neighborhood poverty, the school environment, and instability of the neig

SUBMITTER: Rudolph KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11471960 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature