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Typo in causal diagram

Open LucyMcGowan opened this issue 10 months ago • 0 comments

I think we have a typo in this causal diagram:

https://www.r-causal.org/chapters/01-casual-to-causal#fig-diagram-3

It has the time 0 as 'when they stopped' but the study actually looks at reduction, not cessation:

To measure a substantial reduction in tobacco consumption, we only considered participants who were heavy smokers at first examination. Smoking reduction was then defined as smokers of 15 g of tobacco or more per day at first examination, who at the second examination reported a decrease of 50% or more without quitting.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/201598

So I think this should be "when they reduced their smoking by at least 50%" - even that is not quite exact because it sounds like they had a baseline visit and a second visit and if they reported smoking 50% less between the two they were classified as a reducer, and it isn't exactly clear which time point they use as 0 but in either case I think it isn't "when they stopped"

@malcolmbarrett do you mind updating that figure? I don't think I have the raw ones on my machine

LucyMcGowan avatar Jan 17 '25 15:01 LucyMcGowan