On the Causal Interpretation of Race in Regressions Adjusting for Confounding and Mediating Variables
On the Causal Interpretation of Race in Regressions Adjusting for Confounding and Mediating Variables
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DOI：
10.1097/ede.0000000000000105
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发表时间：
2014-07-01
期刊：
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Robinson, Whitney R.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
VanderWeele, Tyler J.;Robinson, Whitney R.
我们考虑了几种可能的解释“种族的影响”时，回归运行与种族作为一个曝光变量，控制各种混杂和中介变量。当调整是在一个人的生命早期的社会经济地位，我们讨论在什么情况下，种族的回归系数可以被解释为对应的程度，种族不平等将保持如果各种社会经济分布在生命早期跨种族群体可以被均衡。当调整成人的社会经济地位时，我们注意到整体种族不平等可以分解为两部分，一部分是通过使各种族群体的成人社会经济地位平等而消除的，另一部分是即使各种族群体的成人社会经济地位平等也会存在的不平等。我们还讨论了一个更强的解释种族的影响（更强的假设），涉及种族相关的物理表型（如，肤色），父母的物理表型，遗传背景和文化背景的联合效应时，这些变量被认为是假设操纵，如果有足够的控制混杂是可能的。我们讨论了这种解释的一些挑战。进一步的讨论是如何使用选定的人口在审查种族差异可以额外复杂的解释的影响。
We consider several possible interpretations of the "effect of race" when regressions are run with race as an exposure variable, controlling also for various confounding and mediating variables. When adjustment is made for socioeconomic status early in a person's life, we discuss under what contexts the regression coefficients for race can be interpreted as corresponding to the extent to which a racial inequality would remain if various socioeconomic distributions early in life across racial groups could be equalized. When adjustment is also made for adult socioeconomic status, we note how the overall racial inequality can be decomposed into the portion that would be eliminated by equalizing adult socioeconomic status across racial groups and the portion of the inequality that would remain even if adult socioeconomic status across racial groups were equalized. We also discuss a stronger interpretation of the effect of race (stronger in terms of assumptions) involving the joint effects of race-associated physical phenotype (eg, skin color), parental physical phenotype, genetic background, and cultural context when such variables are thought to be hypothetically manipulable and if adequate control for confounding were possible. We discuss some of the challenges with such an interpretation. Further discussion is given as to how the use of selected populations in examining racial disparities can additionally complicate the interpretation of the effects.