Formulating causal questions and principled statistical answers.

ABSTRACT: Although review papers on causal inference methods are now available, there is a lack of introductory overviews on what they can render and on the guiding criteria for choosing one particular method. This tutorial gives an overview in situations where an exposure of interest is set at a chosen baseline ("point exposure") and the target outcome arises at a later time point. We first phrase relevant causal questions and make a case for being specific about the possible exposure levels involved and the populations for which the question is relevant. Using the potential outcomes framework, we describe principled definitions of causal effects and of estimation approaches classified according to whether they invoke the no unmeasured confounding assumption (including outcome regression and propen

SUBMITTER: Goetghebeur E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7756489 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature