| The paper in question: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... It’s a research letter, which is peer-reviewed by JAMA but shorter than a traditional, full-fledged research article. The full text of the letter’s description of the adjustments: > with adjustment for known and suspected risk factors for depression, including [followed by a list of over a dozen factors] The data sharing supplement says that the code is on GitHub (hmm!), but doesn’t include a link (oh…). That’s all I have to work with. I can’t make a specific criticism of the adjustments in this study. I’m left with my preconceived notions of how this kind of research is often done, even with peer-review. When I read the words “we controlled for X in our population study of Y”, I usually take the lazy shortcut of not updating my internal model of the relationship between X and Y at all, because I’ve fooled myself too many times before. If they mention a natural experiment or instrumental variable I get excited. |