Longitudinal Data Analysis

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Mediation Analysis With Longitudinal Data

David L. Roth

University of Alabama at Birmingham

David P. MacKinnon

Arizona State University

 

Mediation analysis provides a multivariate framework for testing hypotheses about chains of causal relationships among multiple variables (MacKinnon, 2008). The most straightforward mediation model is one where a primary causal variable X leads to changes on an observed mediating variable M, which in turn causes changes on an outcome variable Y. This relatively simple model is remarkably useful in many research contexts. It can be used, for example, to evaluate the hypothesized causal mechanisms that account for intervention effects on outcomes or to examine the fit of purely observational data to theoretically ...