ReviewAnnals of epidemiology2016
Does water kill? A call for less casual causal inferences.
Review in Annals of epidemiology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 90 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled 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.
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
90 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- How to assess applicability and methodological quality of comparative studies of operative interventions in orthopedic trauma surgery.European journal of trauma and emergency surgery : official publication of the European Trauma Society · 2022Pooled it
- Efficacy of Home Anticonvulsant Administration for Second-Line Status Epilepticus Treatment.Neurology · 2021Trial
- Mediation effects that emulate a target randomised trial: Simulation-based evaluation of ill-defined interventions on multiple mediators.Statistical methods in medical research · 2021Trial
- The Effect of Prenatal Treatments on Offspring Events in the Presence of Competing Events: An Application to a Randomized Trial of Fertility Therapies.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2020Trial
- Organisational interventions in nursing care: A scoping review and descriptive system to support comparison.International journal of nursing studies advances · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of Metformin in Preventing Colorectal Cancer Among Japanese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: A Target Trial Emulation.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2026Article
- Studying When to Add Biological Therapy to Cytotoxic Therapy in Advanced Cancer Care Using Real World Data: How to Avoid Design Choices That Generate Immortal Time.Cancer medicine · 2026Article
- A Framework for Thinking About the Potential Public Health Impact of Epidemiologic Research.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Causal Inference in Health Disparities Research.Annual review of public health · 2026Review
- What Are We Estimating? Revisiting Standard Nutritional Models Through the Target Trial Framework.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Covariate adjustment in LGBTQ+ health disparities research: aligning methods with assumptions.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Assessing greenspace and cardiovascular disease risk through deep learning analysis of street-view imagery in the US-based nationwide Nurses' Health Study.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
- Opportunities, challenges and future perspectives for target trial emulation in critical care clinical research.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Review
- The causal effect of parent occupation on child occupation: A multivalued treatment with positivity constraints.Sociological methods & research · 2025Article
- Behavioural and metabolic mediators of socioeconomic inequalities in type 2 diabetes: comparing counterfactual and traditional mediation analysis.European journal of public health · 2025Article
- Missing the target in target trial emulation.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Article
- Rejoinder to Commentaries on: On the Uses and Abuses of Regression Models: A Call for Reform of Statistical Practice and Teaching.Statistics in medicine · 2025Article
- On the Uses and Abuses of Regression Models: A Call for Reform of Statistical Practice and Teaching.Statistics in medicine · 2025Article
30 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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
"Can this number be interpreted as a causal effect?" is a key question for scientists and decision makers. The potential outcomes approach, a quantitative counterfactual theory, describes conditions under which the question can be answered affirmatively. This article reviews one of those conditions, known as consistency, and its implications for real world decisions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.