Estimating the natural indirect effect and the mediation proportion via the product method.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The natural indirect effect (NIE) and mediation proportion (MP) are two measures of primary interest in mediation analysis. The standard approach for mediation analysis is through the product method, which involves a model for the outcome conditional on the mediator and exposure and another model describing the exposure-mediator relationship. The purpose of this article is to comprehensively develop and investigate the finite-sample performance of NIE and MP estimators via the product method.

Methods

With four common data types with a continuous/binary outcome and a continuous/binary mediator, we propose closed-form interval estimators for NIE and MP via the theory of multivariate delta method, and evaluate its empirical performance relative to the bootstrap appro

SUBMITTER: Cheng C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8606099 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature