Mediation analysis with intermediate confounding: structural equation modeling viewed through the causal inference lens.

ABSTRACT: The study of mediation has a long tradition in the social sciences and a relatively more recent one in epidemiology. The first school is linked to path analysis and structural equation models (SEMs), while the second is related mostly to methods developed within the potential outcomes approach to causal inference. By giving model-free definitions of direct and indirect effects and clear assumptions for their identification, the latter school has formalized notions intuitively developed in the former and has greatly increased the flexibility of the models involved. However, through its predominant focus on nonparametric identification, the causal inference approach to effect decomposition via natural effects is limited to settings that exclude intermediate confounders. Such confounders are

SUBMITTER: De Stavola BL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4383385 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature