Causal discovery and epidemiology: a potential for synergy

Introduction We wish to applaud the insightful commentary provided by Didelez1 on our comparative study of data-driven versus theory-driven approaches for constructing causal life-course models.2 Didelez’ concise and honest description of both possibilities and limitations of causal discovery for epidemiology will be a tremendously useful resource moving forward. We will address a question posed by Didelez regarding the expert consensus meeting and provide a few additional topics for further research that we believe will aid both epidemiology and causal discovery research.