Tyler J. VanderWeele develops methods and foundations for causal inference. With Ilya Shpitser, he examined how to define a confounder so that the definition supports valid adjustment decisions.[ref]
Their preferred definition concerns a pretreatment variable belonging to some minimally sufficient adjustment set. This connects the variable's role to elimination of confounding, rather than merely to prediction of exposure and outcome. The distinction matters because a predictive variable can be unsuitable for adjustment, and the contribution of one covariate depends on what else is adjusted for.[ref]
On the definition of a confounder by Tyler J. VanderWeele and Ilya Shpitser. Definition4 and comparison of candidate properties
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