Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25580387›Full record

ArticleEpidemiology, biostatistics and public health2014

Sensitivity analysis for direct and indirect effects in the presence of exposure-induced mediator-outcome confounders.

Tyler J VanderWeele, Yasutaka Chiba

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Epidemiology, biostatistics and public health, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
38citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

38 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. A Systematic Review of the Reporting Quality of Observational Studies That Use Mediation Analyses.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2022
    Pooled it
  3. Three-Way Decomposition for Applied Health Equity Research: A Practical Tutorial to Understand and Address Inequalities.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Practical challenges in mediation analysis: a guide for applied researchers.Health services & outcomes research methodology · 2025
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Review
  8. Article
  9. A brief primer on conducting regression-based causal mediation analysis.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2023
    Review
  10. Article
  11. Pathway-specific population attributable fractions.International journal of epidemiology · 2022
    Article
  12. Applied causal inference methods for sequential mediators.BMC medical research methodology · 2022
    Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Review
  19. Review
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

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

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Tyler J VanderWeeleDepartments of Epidemiology and biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Yasutaka ChibaDivision of Biostatistics, Clinical Research Center, Kinki University School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan.

Funding

Statistical Methods for Analysis of Massive Genetic and Genomic Data in Cancer ResearchR35CA197449 · NCI · HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · PI XIHONG LIN · 2015 to 2026
$10.9M
Statistical Methods for the Spatio-Temporal Assessment of Social Disparities in CancerP01CA134294 · NCI · HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · PI HANEUSE, SEBASTIEN, HERNAN, MIGUEL · 2008 to 2017
$6.8M
Identification and Inference for Longitudinal Causal Mediation Analysis in HIVR01AI104459 · NIAID · HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · PI SHPITSER, ILYA, VANDERWEELE, TYLER · 2013 to 2017
$2.0M
Theory and methods for sufficient cause interactionsR01ES017876 · NIEHS · HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · PI VANDERWEELE, TYLER · 2010 to 2014
$1.2M
NCI NIH HHS P01 CA134294NCI NIH HHS R35 CA197449NIAID NIH HHS R01 AI104459NIEHS NIH HHS R01 ES017876
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Questions of mediation are often of interest in reasoning about mechanisms, and methods have been developed to address these questions. However, these methods make strong assumptions about the absence of confounding. Even if exposure is randomized, there may be mediator-outcome confounding variables. Inference about direct and indirect effects is particularly challenging if these mediator-outcome confounders are affected by the exposure because in this case these effects are not identified irrespective of whether data is available on these exposure-induced mediator-outcome confounders. In this paper, we provide a sensitivity analysis technique for natural direct and indirect effects that is applicable even if there are mediator-outcome confounders affected by the exposure. We give techniques for both the difference and risk ratio scales and compare the technique to other possible approaches.

Indexed as

Confoundingdirect and indirect effectsmediationsensitivity analysis

Identifiers

PMID25580387
PMCPMC4287391

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.