Estimating Direct Effects in Cohort and Case-Control Studies
- 31 October 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) in Epidemiology
- Vol. 20 (6), 851-860
- https://doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0b013e3181b6f4c9
Abstract
Estimating the effect of an exposure on an outcome, other than through some given mediator, requires adjustment for all risk factors of the mediator that are also associated with the outcome. When these risk factors are themselves affected by the exposure, then standard regression methods do not apply. In this article, I review methods for accommodating this and discuss their limitations for estimating the controlled direct effect (ie, the exposure effect when controlling the mediator at a specified level uniformly in the population). In addition, I propose a powerful and easy-to-apply alternative that uses G-estimation in structural nested models to address these limitations both for cohort and case-control studies.This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
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