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bioRxiv · 10.1101/231969

Conditioning on a collider may induce spurious associations: Do the results of Gale et al. (2017) support a protective effect of neuroticism in population sub-groups?

Richardson, T. G.·Davey Smith, G.·Munafo, M. R.
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Abstract

Introduction Introduction Methods Results Discussion References Gale and colleagues (Gale et al., 2017) examined the association between neuroticism and mortality in a large sample (N > 300,000) drawn from the UK Biobank study (Sudlow et al., 2015). They observed that neuroticism was associated with an increase in all-cause mortality, but that following adjustment for self-rated health neuroticism was associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality. Further analyses stratified on self-rated health suggested that higher neuroticism was associated with reduced mortality only among those with fair or poor self-rated health. The authors conclude that neuroticism may have protective effects among certain sub-groups, and finding that generated substantial interest (TIME, 2017).\n\nThe availability ...

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Richardson, T. G., Davey Smith, G., Munafo, M. R.. 2017-12-11. Conditioning on a collider may induce spurious associations: Do the results of Gale et al. (2017) support a protective effect of neuroticism in population sub-groups?. https://doi.org/10.1101/231969

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