randomized controlled trial vs. front-door adjustment

In 2014, Adam Glynn and Konstantin Kashin, applied the new method to a data set well scrutinized by social scientists, called the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), conducted from 1987 to 1989.

Notably, the study included both a randomized controlled trial (RCT), where people were randomly assigned to receive services or not, and an observational study, in which people could choose for themselves.

Glynn and Kashin’s results show why the front-door adjustment is such a powerful tool: it allows us to control for confounders that we cannot observe (like Motivation), including those that we can’t even name.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/aglynn/files/glynnkashin-frontdoor.pdf