Identifying causal mechanisms in health care interventions using classification tree analysis.
Journal:
Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Published Date:
Apr 1, 2018
Abstract
RATIONALE, AIMS, AND OBJECTIVES: Mediation analysis identifies causal pathways by testing the relationships between the treatment, the outcome, and an intermediate variable that mediates the relationship between the treatment and outcome. This paper introduces classification tree analysis (CTA), a machine-learning procedure, as an alternative to conventional methods for analysing mediation effects.