The identification of synergism in the sufficient-component-cause framework.
Various concepts of interaction are reconsidered in light of a sufficient-component-cause framework. Conditions and statistical tests are derived for the presence of synergism within sufficient causes. The conditions derived are sufficient but not necessary for the presence of synergism. In the context of monotonic effects, the conditions derived are closely related to effect modification on the risk difference scale; however, this is not the case without the assumption of monotonic effects.
VanderWeele
Tyler J
TJ
Department of Health Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. vanderweele@uchicago.edu
Robins
James M
JM
D015984:Causality; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D015987:Effect Modifier, Epidemiologic; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D018570:Risk Assessment