In the field of epidemiology, a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) is a visual representation of causal relationships among variables. DAGs are used to map out hypotheses regarding the potential causal pathways between exposures, outcomes, and confounders. The "directed" aspect indicates the direction of the relationship, while "acyclic" means that the graph does not contain any cycles, thus preventing a variable from influencing itself either directly or indirectly.
