How Large Must an Associational Mean Difference Be to Support a Causal Effect

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

An observational study might support a causal claim if the association found cannot be explained by bias due to unconsidered confounders. This bias depends on how strongly the common predisposition, a summary of unconsidered confounders, is related to the factor and the outcome. For a positive effect to be supported, the product of these two relations must be smaller than the left boundary of the confidence interval for, e.g., a standardised mean difference (d). We suggest means to derive heuristics for how large this product must be to serve as a confirmatory threshold. We also provide non-technical, visual means to express researchers’ assumptions on the two relations to assess whether a finding on d is explainable by omitted confounders. The ViSe tool, available as an R package and Shiny application, allows users to choose between various effect sizes and apply it to their own data or published summary results.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)318-335
Number of pages18
JournalMethodology
Volume20
Issue number4
Publication statusPublished - 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0001-7646-8265/work/183164505

Keywords

Keywords

  • causality, confirmation, effect size, observational studies, software, visualisation