Marginal structural models for sufficient cause interactions.

ABSTRACT: Sufficient cause interactions concern cases in which there is a particular causal mechanism for some outcome that requires the presence of 2 or more specific causes to operate. Empirical conditions have been derived to test for sufficient cause interactions. However, when regression outcome models are used to control for confounding variables in tests for sufficient cause interactions, the outcome models impose restrictions on the relation between the confounding variables and certain unidentified background causes within the sufficient cause framework; often, these assumptions are implausible. By using marginal structural models, rather than outcome regression models, to test for sufficient cause interactions, modeling assumptions are instead made on the relation between the causes of int

SUBMITTER: Vanderweele TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2877448 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature