Abstract Decomposing an exposure effect on an outcome into separate natural indirect effects through multiple mediators requires strict assumptions, such as correctly postulating the causal structure of the mediators, and no unmeasured confounding among the mediators. In contrast, interventional...

Abstract Standard causal mediation analysis decomposes the total effect into a direct effect and an indirect effect in settings with only one single mediator. Under the settings with multiple mediators, all mediators are often treated as one single block of mediators. The effect mediated by a...