Bijlsma, MJ;
Daniel, RM;
Janssen, F;
De Stavola, BL;
(2017)
An Assessment and Extension of the Mechanism-Based Approach to the Identification of Age-Period-Cohort Models.
Demography
, 54
(2)
pp. 721-743.
10.1007/s13524-017-0562-6.
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Abstract
Many methods have been proposed to solve the age-period-cohort (APC) linear identification problem, but most are not theoretically informed and may lead to biased estimators of APC effects. One exception is the mechanism-based approach recently proposed and based on Pearl’s front-door criterion; this approach ensures consistent APC effect estimators in the presence of a complete set of intermediate variables between one of age, period, cohort, and the outcome of interest, as long as the assumed parametric models for all the relevant causal pathways are correct. Through a simulation study mimicking APC data on cardiovascular mortality, we demonstrate possible pitfalls that users of the mechanism-based approach may encounter under realistic conditions: namely, when (1) the set of available intermediate variables is incomplete, (2) intermediate variables are affected by two or more of the APC variables (while this feature is not acknowledged in the analysis), and (3) unaccounted confounding is present between intermediate variables and the outcome. Furthermore, we show how the mechanism-based approach can be extended beyond the originally proposed linear and probit regression models to incorporate all generalized linear models, as well as nonlinearities in the predictors, using Monte Carlo simulation. Based on the observed biases resulting from departures from underlying assumptions, we formulate guidelines for the application of the mechanism-based approach (extended or not).
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | An Assessment and Extension of the Mechanism-Based Approach to the Identification of Age-Period-Cohort Models |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s13524-017-0562-6 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-017-0562-6 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2017. Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
| Keywords: | Age-period-cohort analysis, Identification, Causal inference, Mechanisms, Front-door criterion |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Population, Policy and Practice Dept |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1567948 |
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