Invited Commentary: Selection Bias Without Colliders

Abstract

In causal analyses, conditioning on a collider generally results in selection bias. Conditioning on a prognostic factor that is independent of the exposure-and therefore is not a collider-can also result in selection bias when 1) the exposure has a non-null effect on the outcome and 2) the association between the noncollider and the outcome is heterogenous across levels of the exposure. This result was empirically demonstrated by Greenland in 1977 (Am J Epidemiol. 1977;106(3):184-187).

Keywords: causal diagrams; collider; loss to follow-up; selection bias.

Figure 1.

Causal directed acyclic graph off the null where E is exposure, D is disease, C is censoring, and U is the unmeasured common causes of C and D. The box around C indicates that the analysis is conditional on being uncensored.

Figure 2.

Causal directed acyclic graph under the null where E is exposure, D is disease, C is censoring, and U is the unmeasured common causes of C and D. The box around C indicates that the analysis is conditional on being uncensored.