DAGassist (version 0.2.7)

bad_controls_in: flag bad controls (mediator/collider/desc of Y) among a candidate set

Description

flag bad controls (mediator/collider/desc of Y) among a candidate set

Usage

bad_controls_in(dag, controls, exposure, outcome)

Value

A character vector (possibly empty) containing the elements of controls that are identified as "bad controls".

This is essentially the inverse of pick_minimal_controls(), as it returns bad controls, rather than the minimal/canonical set of good controls

Arguments

dag

A dagitty DAG object.

controls

Character vector of variable names.

exposure

Character; exposure node name (X).

outcome

Character; outcome node name (Y).

Examples

if (FALSE) { # requireNamespace("dagitty", quietly = TRUE)
d <- ggdag::dagify(
Y ~ X + M + Z,
M ~ X + Z,
C ~ X + Y,
exposure = "X",
outcome = "Y")
# M: mediator / Z: confounder / C: collider

# hypothetical candidate controls
controls <- c("Z", "M", "C")

# Flag controls that would bias the total effect of X on Y:
bad_controls_in(d, controls = c("Z","M","C"), exposure = "X", outcome = "Y")

# expected: c("M", "C")  # mediator & collider are "bad controls"; Z is OK
}