Suppose that we are interested in the average causal effect of a binary treatment on an outcome when this relationship is confounded by a binary confounder. Suppose that the confounder is unobserved but a non-differential binary proxy of it is observed. We identify conditions under which adjusting for the proxy comes closer to the incomputable true average causal effect than not adjusting at all. Unlike other works, we do not assume that the average causal effect of the confounder on the outcome is in the same direction among treated and untreated.
翻译:假设我们关心二进制治疗对结果的平均因果效应, 当这种关系被二进制的混淆者所迷惑时。 假设该混淆者没有被观察,但观察到其非差别的二进制代理物。 我们确定在何种条件下,对代理物的调整更接近无可争议的真实平均因果效应,而不是完全没有调整。 与其他工程不同,我们不认为该混淆者对结果的平均因果效应在被治疗者与未治疗者之间有着相同的方向。