A general explanation of the counterfactual definition of confounding

Affiliations

• ¹ Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-8558, Japan. Electronic address: etsuji-s@cc.okayama-u.ac.jp.
• ² Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science, Okayama University, 3-1-1 Tsushima-naka, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-8530, Japan; RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0027, Japan.
• ³ Okayama University of Science, 1-1 Ridai-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-0005, Japan.