12  Day 2: Group work

Objective of this session

In this session, We will get hands on practice using the Framingham dataset. You will conduct a causal mediation analysis, considering:

• Conduct causal mediation analyses with exposure induced mediator-outcome confounder or multiple mediators
• Conduct sensitivity analyses
• Report the results following the guidelines

We will continue working with the obesity and cardiovascular disease example.

First, reflect on the group work from yesterday and discuss the following questions with your group members:

• Review the assumptions of causal mediation, and discuss the robustness of your estimates
• Are there other mediators than systolic blood pressure?
• Are there interactions between obesity and the mediators?

Re-conduct the mediation analysis and address the discussion points. You can either use the mediation package or CMAverse package.

1. Re-do the DAG, and investigate the potential pathways

2. Perform a causal mediation analysis

3. Conduct a sensitivity analyses for uncontrolled confounding and discuss the results

4. Write a short report of your mediation models. Focus on item 6,9,10,11,14,15,18,19,20,21,22 in the long Agrema checklist.