Evidence map›Paper›PMID 26800751›Full record

ArticleInternational journal of epidemiology2016

Causality and causal inference in epidemiology: the need for a pluralistic approach.

Jan P Vandenbroucke, Alex Broadbent, Neil Pearce

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in International journal of epidemiology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 129 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
129citing papers in PubMed, 6 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

129 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Pooled it
  4. Pooled it
  5. Pooled it
  6. Pooled it
  7. Review
  8. Causal Inference in Clinical Research: A Primer.Journal of periodontal research · 2026
    Review
  9. Article
  10. Review
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Review
  14. Review
  15. Article
  16. 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
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Review
  20. Article

69 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Jan P VandenbrouckeDepartment of Clinical Epidemiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands and Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark.
Alex BroadbentDepartment of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa.
Neil PearceDepartment of Medical Statistics and Centre for Global NCDs, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK and Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.

Funding

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
Semiparametric Methods for Gene-environment InteractionR01ES020337 · NIEHS · HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · PI TCHETGEN TCHETGEN, ERIC JOEL · 2012 to 2015
$1.4M
NIAID NIH HHS R01 AI104459NIEHS NIH HHS R01 ES020337Wellcome TrustWellcome Trust 097834/Z/11/B
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Causal inference based on a restricted version of the potential outcomes approach reasoning is assuming an increasingly prominent place in the teaching and practice of epidemiology. The proposed concepts and methods are useful for particular problems, but it would be of concern if the theory and practice of the complete field of epidemiology were to become restricted to this single approach to causal inference. Our concerns are that this theory restricts the questions that epidemiologists may ask and the study designs that they may consider. It also restricts the evidence that may be considered acceptable to assess causality, and thereby the evidence that may be considered acceptable for scientific and public health decision making. These restrictions are based on a particular conceptual framework for thinking about causality. In Section 1, we describe the characteristics of the restricted potential outcomes approach (RPOA) and show that there is a methodological movement which advocates these principles, not just for solving particular problems, but as ideals for which epidemiology as a whole should strive. In Section 2, we seek to show that the limitation of epidemiology to one particular view of the nature of causality is problematic. In Section 3, we argue that the RPOA is also problematic with regard to the assessment of causality. We argue that it threatens to restrict study design choice, to wrongly discredit the results of types of observational studies that have been very useful in the past and to damage the teaching of epidemiological reasoning. Finally, in Section 4 we set out what we regard as a more reasonable 'working hypothesis' as to the nature of causality and its assessment: pragmatic pluralism.

Indexed as

CausalityPhilosophyResearch DesignEpidemiologyHumansModels, TheoreticalReproducibility of ResultsRisk AssessmentRisk Factors

Identifiers

PMID26800751
PMCPMC5841832

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

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.