Generalizability vs. Transportability in Trials

s_doi:

This schematic might help. Note I have renamed “transportability“ to “causal applicability“

Looks quite interesting but I don’t follow it completely. To me the missing piece is causal object explication . Eligibility criteria is an opaque term. What is it? This is where the fundamental error of communication between stat and pathophysiology expert occurs.

P(Y | do(T), E) what does that even mean? It could easily be anything and often is.

For example it could be

E = {C1, C2, C3, …} or E=g(symptoms, thresholds)

Where: g is the eligibility rule based on non-cause specific clinical findings of thresholds.

Please provide supportive explanation. Particularly of E.

Btw “Causal applicability” is an excellent term. There is a little expert heuristics in that function, I suspect. IMHO the graph is powerful but without causal explication it the graph is easily misinterpreted.