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First published online March 17, 2026

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Treatment Effect on the Association Between Outcomes

Lai Wei https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1887-4761 [email protected]View all authors and affiliations

https://doi.org/10.1177/00491241261430340

Abstract
Data availability statement
References
Biographies
Supplementary Material

Abstract

This article introduces treatment effect on the association between outcomes (TEA), a new causal estimand that measures how a treatment influences the covariance between two post-treatment variables. TEA enables researchers to estimate how interventions affect associations that characterize social inequalities. I define TEA, provide identification results under standard causal inference assumptions, and outline estimation strategies including regression-imputation, weighting, and double machine learning estimators. I compare and contrast TEA with other common estimands in similar research settings, highlighting its unique use. I demonstrate the use of TEA through two applications: the effect of college completion on income gradient in health and the effect of college completion on issue alignment, using NLSY97 and GSS, respectively. By exploring how treatments modify associations between outcomes, TEA offers a valuable tool for sociological research on inequality, stratification, and public opinion, providing insights into the mechanisms sustaining social inequalities and informing policy interventions.

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Data availability statement

Replication files can be found at https://osf.io/6wx53 (Wei 2026). The analyses in the paper made use of GSS 2021 and NLSY97, both of which are publicly available. Instructions to download the datasets are provided in the replication file.

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Biographies

Lai Wei is an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. He graduated with a PhD in Sociology from Princeton University in 2024. He studies social stratification and quantitative methodology.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

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For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

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