Subtleties of explanatory language: what is meant by "mediation"?

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

1. Examining the role of systemic inflammation as a mediator of the glycaemia-brain volume associations in women.PloS one · 2026
   Article
2. Unraveling Causality: Innovations in Epidemiologic Methods.JMA journal · 2025
   Article
3. Causal mediation analysis with multiple causally non-ordered mediators.Statistical methods in medical research · 2018
   Article
4. Consistency in patient-reported outcomes after total hip replacement.Acta orthopaedica · 2017
   Article
5. A unification of mediation and interaction: a 4-way decomposition.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2014
   Article
6. A three-way decomposition of a total effect into direct, indirect, and interactive effects.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2013
   Article

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

Authors and funding

1 author.

Funding

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.

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