ArticleMultivariate behavioral research
Why You Should Not Estimate Mediated Effects Using the Difference-in-Coefficients Method When the Outcome is Binary.
Article in Multivariate behavioral research. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Individuals' Experience of Violence in Adolescence and Firearm Violence Victimization in Early Adulthood.Journal of interpersonal violence · 2026Article
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3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Despite previous warnings against the use of the difference-in-coefficients method for estimating the indirect effect when the outcome in the mediation model is binary, the difference-in-coefficients method remains readily used in a variety of fields. The continued use of this method is presumably because of the lack of awareness that this method conflates the indirect effect estimate and non-collapsibility. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate the problems associated with the difference-in-coefficients method for estimating indirect effects for mediation models with binary outcomes. We provide a formula that decomposes the difference-in-coefficients estimate into (1) an estimate of non-collapsibility, and (2) an indirect effect estimate. We use a simulation study and an empirical data example to illustrate the impact of non-collapsibility on the difference-in-coefficients estimate of the indirect effect. Further, we demonstrate the application of several alternative methods for estimating the indirect effect, including the product-of-coefficients method and regression-based causal mediation analysis. The results emphasize the importance of choosing a method for estimating the indirect effect that is not affected by non-collapsibility.
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