S2E13: Confounding: Ten thousand arrows going into a bunch of squiggly things

In this episode of Season 2 of SERious Epidemiology, Hailey and Matt discuss confounding and whether confounding is hogging the spotlight in epi methods and epi teaching. We debate the value of all the different terms for confounding in the world of epi and beyond and struggle to define them all. We talk about different definitions for confounding and we differentiate between confounders and confounding. We talk about the 10% change in estimate of effect approach and its limitations and we talk about different strategies for confounder control. And Hailey coins the term “DAGmatist”. We reference the paper below: VanderWeele, T.J. and Shpitser, I. (2011). A new criterion for confounder selection. Biometrics, 67:1406-1413.