# InSIDE Assumption

**URL:** <https://isgw-forum.colorado.edu/t/inside-assumption/903>\
**Category:** Day 7\
**Created:** [June 11, 2026, 4:03pm UTC](https://isgw-forum.colorado.edu/t/inside-assumption/903 "2026-06-11T16:03:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anonymous](https://isgw-forum.colorado.edu/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@anonymous](https://isgw-forum.colorado.edu/u/anonymous)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2026, 4:03pm UTC](https://isgw-forum.colorado.edu/t/inside-assumption/903/1 "2026-06-11T16:03:26Z")

</div>

is there a test to see if the InSIDE assumption holds? If the assumption is that the SNP-exposure effects aren’t correlated with the SNP-outcome effects can’t we just test that empirically?

> Replying to “is there a test to see if the InSIDE assumption ho…”:

Unfortunately only in theory without making some strong assumptions. The SNP-outcome associations are a mixture of the direct and mediated effects and it’s difficult to pull those two things apart, so your SNP-outcome estimate doesn’t just represent direct effects.