ReviewPediatric research2018
Directed acyclic graphs: a tool for causal studies in paediatrics.
Review in Pediatric research, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 105 papers, 4 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
105 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 261 citations in OpenAlex.
- Does the evidence support in utero influences on later health and disease? A systematic review of highly cited Barker studies on developmental origins.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2024Pooled it
- Association between Endotype of Prematurity and Mortality: A Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Meta-Regression.Neonatology · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Neonatal jaundice and autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Pediatric research · 2021Pooled it
- Antenatal magnesium sulphate for neuroprotection of preterm babies: data analysis of inequities in treatment in England 2014 to 2024.BMJ open quality · 2026Article
- The Association Between Foetal Brain and Body Size Mid-Gestation and Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Childhood.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2026Article
- Paracetamol as analgesic and risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia in extremely preterm infants: a secondary analysis of the BeNeDuctus trial.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Maternal circulating lipid metabolic heterogeneity in preeclampsia: machine learning identifies clinically distinct subtypes.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Investigating the Association Between Volatile Organic Compounds and Preterm Birth in Detroit, Michigan: Protocol for the Center for Leadership in Environmental Awareness and Research Birth Cohort Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- A review of drivers of emerging infectious diseases within the wildlife-human-domestic animal interface in the West Pacific Tropics.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Review
- Multivariate mendelian randomization for joint inferences of correlated outcomes.European journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Chemical mixtures and birth weight: comparison of multipollutant models in the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) study.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2026Article
- Selection Biases in Perinatal Research: A Comparison of Inverse Probability Weighting, Instrumental Variable and Sibling-Comparison Design.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2026Article
- Timing of decompressive craniectomy and short-term outcomes in pediatric severe traumatic brain injury: a nationwide observational study in Germany.Scientific reports · 2026Observational
- Critique of impure reason: Unveiling the reasoning behaviour of medical large language models.eLife · 2025Article
- Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Cancer Mortality and Mediating Effects of Sociodemographic, Clinicopathologic, and Treatment Factors.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2025Article
- Early-Onset Neonatal Infection and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Nationwide Cohort Study.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2025Article
- Guidance on minimum information requirements (MIR) from designing to reporting human biomonitoring (HBM).Environment international · 2025Article
- Selenium, zinc, and copper intake and status of vegetarian, vegan, and omnivore children and adolescents: results of the VeChi youth study.European journal of nutrition · 2025Article
- Early-Onset Neonatal Infection and Epilepsy in Children.JAMA network open · 2025Article
45 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Many paediatric clinical research studies, whether observational or interventional, have as an eventual aim the identification or quantification of causal relationships. One might ask: does screen time influence childhood obesity? Could overuse of paracetamol in infancy cause wheeze? How does breastfeeding affect later cognitive outcomes? In this review, we present causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to a paediatric audience. DAGs are a graphical tool which provide a way to visually represent and better understand the key concepts of exposure, outcome, causation, confounding, and bias. We use clinical examples, including those outlined above, framed in the language of DAGs, to demonstrate their potential applications. We show how DAGs can be most useful in identifying confounding and sources of bias, demonstrating inappropriate statistical adjustments for presumed biases, and understanding threats to validity in randomised controlled trials. We believe that a familiarity with DAGs, and the concepts underlying them, will be of benefit both to the researchers planning studies, and practising clinicians interpreting them.
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.