Detecting and Understanding the Difference between Natural Mediation Effects and Their Randomized Interventional Analogues
自然中介效应与随机干预类比量差异的检测与理解
In causal mediation analysis, the natural direct and indirect effects (natural effects) are nonparametrically unidentifiable in the presence of treatment-induced confounding, which motivated the development of randomized interventional analogues (RIAs) of the natural effects. Being easier to identify, the RIAs are becoming widely used in practice. However, applied researchers often interpret RIA estimates as if they were the natural effects, even though the RIAs can be poor…