neEffdecomp - error n varterms[sapply(cov, grep, varterms)] : invalid subscript type 'list'

[juliabenner]

Hi,
when I want to use the neEffdecomp function to extract the natural direct, indirect and total causal effect estimates from my natural effect model, this error appears. Is it because my natural effect model (neMod) is stored as a list?

thank you for your help!

[tarensanders]

This happens when you have covariates that are substrings of each other. Reprex:

library("medflex")
data("UPBdata")

UPBdata$gender_educ <- UPBdata$educ
# Note that 'educ' is now a substring of 'gender_educ

expData <- neImpute(UPB ~ att * negaff + gender + gender_educ + age,
  family = binomial("logit"), data = UPBdata
)
neMod2 <- neModel(UPB ~ att0 * att1 + gender + gender_educ + age,
  family = binomial("logit"), expData = expData, se = "robust"
)

effdecomp <- neEffdecomp(neMod2)
#> Error in varterms[sapply(cov, grep, varterms)]: invalid subscript type 'list'

^{Created on 2022-09-01 by the reprex package (v2.0.1)}

To resolve, just rename your variables until there are no substrings.