Contemporary Quantitative Methods and “Slow” Causal Inference

Abstract

This response considers together simultaneously occurring discussions about causal inference in social work and allied health and social science disciplines. It places emphasis on scholarship that integrates the potential outcomes model with directed acyclic graphing techniques to extract core steps in causal inference. Although this scholarship is focused on bolstering causal inference from observational data, it is argued that it also offers processes to facilitate what Marsh terms as slow causal thinking.