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Fig. 1 | BMC Nutrition

Fig. 1

From: Causal impact of malnutrition on mortality among adults hospitalized for medical illness in sub-Saharan Africa: what is the role of severe sepsis?

Fig. 1

A directed acyclic graph (DAG) for the causal effect of malnutrition on mortality. In this depiction, severe sepsis is a hypothesized mediator. We identified severity of underlying disease, tuberculosis, HIV infection, age, sex, and socioeconomic status as the minimum sufficient adjustment set of confounders that would require being adjusted for in order to estimate the overall effects of malnutrition on mortality. The direct effect of malnutrition on mortality is represented by the dashed line with a question mark. We hypothesized that mortality may occur through this pathway (through unknown/unmeasured mediators), or via an indirect pathway through severe sepsis. The severity of underlying illness and socioeconomic status are unmeasured constructs, which are represented by proxy measures; the modified early warning score and the education status, respectively

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