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Published on: September 11, 2021
[The application of causal thinking in several issues in estimation of effects]
1Department of Epidemiology, Key Laboratory for Health Technology Assessment, National Commission of Health and Family Planning, Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety, Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
Abstract:
Epidemiology is a branch of science that mainly involves in the etiology studies of non-randomness phenomenon among homogenous populations. In this paper, we use causal-thinking, supported by its tool-Directed Acyclic Graphs, to illustrate how the estimation of effects is affected by the issues as relations between effect and association, time sequences between variables and their measured counterparts, natural picture of dynamic population, formation of susceptible population, selection of study population, impact of covariates and types of cases etc., on the estimation of effects. This type of thinking may help us to re-capture the epidemiological theories, methods and related applications. Thus, causal-thinking should be strengthened.
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