Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 19 of 19
Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
A General Framework For Diagnosing Confounding Of Time-Varying And Other Joint Exposures, John W. Jackson
A General Framework For Diagnosing Confounding Of Time-Varying And Other Joint Exposures, John W. Jackson
Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series
No abstract provided.
Estimating Controlled Direct Effects Of Restrictive Feeding Practices In The `Early Dieting In Girls' Study, Yeying Zhu, Debashis Ghosh, Donna L. Coffman, Jennifer S. Williams
Estimating Controlled Direct Effects Of Restrictive Feeding Practices In The `Early Dieting In Girls' Study, Yeying Zhu, Debashis Ghosh, Donna L. Coffman, Jennifer S. Williams
Debashis Ghosh
In this article, we examine the causal effect of parental restrictive feeding practices on children’s weight status. An important mediator we are interested in is children’s self-regulation status. Traditional mediation analysis (Baron and Kenny, 1986) applies a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach and decomposes the intent-to-treat (ITT) effect into direct and indirect effects. More recent approaches interpret the mediation effects based on the potential outcomes framework. In practice, there often exist confounders that jointly influence the mediator and the outcome. Inverse probability weighting based on propensity scores are used to adjust for confounding and reduce the dimensionality of confounders simultaneously. …
A Unification Of Mediation And Interaction: A Four-Way Decomposition, Tyler J. Vanderweele
A Unification Of Mediation And Interaction: A Four-Way Decomposition, Tyler J. Vanderweele
Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series
It is shown that the overall effect of an exposure on an outcome, in the presence of a mediator with which the exposure may interact, can be decomposed into four components: (i) the effect of the exposure in the absence of the mediator, (ii) the interactive effect when the mediator is left to what it would be in the absence of exposure, (iii) a mediated interaction, and (iv) a pure mediated effect. These four components, respectively, correspond to the portion of the effect that is due to neither mediation nor interaction, to just interaction (but not mediation), to both mediation …
Estimating Population Treatment Effects From A Survey Sub-Sample, Kara E. Rudolph, Ivan Diaz, Michael Rosenblum, Elizabeth A. Stuart
Estimating Population Treatment Effects From A Survey Sub-Sample, Kara E. Rudolph, Ivan Diaz, Michael Rosenblum, Elizabeth A. Stuart
Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers
We consider the problem of estimating an average treatment effect for a target population from a survey sub-sample. Our motivating example is generalizing a treatment effect estimated in a sub-sample of the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement to the population of U.S. adolescents. To address this problem, we evaluate easy-to-implement methods that account for both non-random treatment assignment and a non-random two-stage selection mechanism. We compare the performance of a Horvitz-Thompson estimator using inverse probability weighting (IPW) and two double robust estimators in a variety of scenarios. We demonstrate that the two double robust estimators generally outperform IPW in …
Why Match In Individually And Cluster Randomized Trials?, Laura B. Balzer, Maya L. Petersen, Mark J. Van Der Laan
Why Match In Individually And Cluster Randomized Trials?, Laura B. Balzer, Maya L. Petersen, Mark J. Van Der Laan
Laura B. Balzer
The decision to match individuals or clusters in randomized trials is motivated by both practical and statistical concerns. Matching protects against chance imbalances in baseline covariate distributions and is thought to improve study credibility. Matching is also implemented to increase study power. This article compares the asymptotic efficiency of the pair-matched design, where units are matched on baseline covariates and the treatment randomized within pairs, to the independent design, where units are randomly paired and the treatment randomized within pairs. We focus on estimating the average treatment effect and use the efficient influence curve to understand the information provided by …
Direct Effect Models, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Maya L. Petersen
Direct Effect Models, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Maya L. Petersen
Maya Petersen
The causal effect of a treatment on an outcome is generally mediated by several intermediate variables. Estimation of the component of the causal effect of a treatment that is not mediated by an intermediate variable (the direct effect of the treatment) is often relevant to mechanistic understanding and to the design of clinical and public health interventions. Robins, Greenland and Pearl develop counterfactual definitions for two types of direct effects, natural and controlled, and discuss assumptions, beyond those of sequential randomization, required for the identifiability of natural direct effects. Building on their earlier work and that of others, this article …
Data-Adaptive Estimation Of The Treatment-Specific Mean, Yue Wang, Oliver Bembom, Mark Van Der Laan
Data-Adaptive Estimation Of The Treatment-Specific Mean, Yue Wang, Oliver Bembom, Mark Van Der Laan
Oliver Bembom
An important problem in epidemiology and medical research is the estimation of the causal effect of a treatment action at a single point in time on the mean of an outcome, possibly within strata of the target population defined by a subset of the baseline covariates. Current approaches to this problem are based on marginal structural models, i.e. parametric models for the marginal distribution of counterfactual outcomes as a function of treatment and effect modifiers. The various estimators developed in this context furthermore each depend on a high-dimensional nuisance parameter whose estimation currently also relies on parametric models. Since misspecification …
Analyzing Sequentially Randomized Trials Based On Causal Effect Models For Realistic Individualized Treatment Rules, Oliver Bembom, Mark J. Van Der Laan
Analyzing Sequentially Randomized Trials Based On Causal Effect Models For Realistic Individualized Treatment Rules, Oliver Bembom, Mark J. Van Der Laan
Oliver Bembom
In this paper, we argue that causal effect models for realistic individualized treatment rules represent an attractive tool for analyzing sequentially randomized trials. Unlike a number of methods proposed previously, this approach does not rely on the assumption that intermediate outcomes are discrete or that models for the distributions of these intermediate outcomes given the observed past are correctly specified. In addition, it generalizes the methodology for performing pairwise comparisons between individualized treatment rules by allowing the user to posit a marginal structural model for all candidate treatment rules simultaneously. If only a small number of candidate treatment rules are …
The Causal Effect Of Recent Leisure-Time Physical Activity On All-Cause Mortality Among The Elderly, Oliver Bembom, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Ira B. Tager
The Causal Effect Of Recent Leisure-Time Physical Activity On All-Cause Mortality Among The Elderly, Oliver Bembom, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Ira B. Tager
Oliver Bembom
We analyze data collected as part of a prospective cohort study of elderly people living in and around Sonoma, CA, in order to estimate, for each round of interviews, the causal effect of leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) over the past year on the risk of mortality in the following two years. For each round of interviews, this effect is estimated separately for subpopulations defined based on past exercise habits, age, and whether subjects have had cardiac events in the past. This decomposition of the original longitudinal data structure into a series of point-treatment data structures corresponds to an application of …
A Practical Illustration Of The Importance Of Realistic Individualized Treatment Rules In Causal Inference, Oliver Bembom, Mark J. Van Der Laan
A Practical Illustration Of The Importance Of Realistic Individualized Treatment Rules In Causal Inference, Oliver Bembom, Mark J. Van Der Laan
Oliver Bembom
The effect of vigorous physical activity on mortality in the elderly is difficult to estimate using conventional approaches to causal inference that define this effect by comparing the mortality risks corresponding to hypothetical scenarios in which all subjects in the target population engage in a given level of vigorous physical activity. A causal effect defined on the basis of such a static treatment intervention can only be identified from observed data if all subjects in the target population have a positive probability of selecting each of the candidate treatment options, an assumption that is highly unrealistic in this case since …
Causal Inference In Longitudinal Studies With History-Restricted Marginal Structural Models, Romain Neugebauer, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Ira B. Tager
Causal Inference In Longitudinal Studies With History-Restricted Marginal Structural Models, Romain Neugebauer, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Ira B. Tager
U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series
Causal Inference based on Marginal Structural Models (MSMs) is particularly attractive to subject-matter investigators because MSM parameters provide explicit representations of causal effects. We introduce History-Restricted Marginal Structural Models (HRMSMs) for longitudinal data for the purpose of defining causal parameters which may often be better suited for Public Health research. This new class of MSMs allows investigators to analyze the causal effect of a treatment on an outcome based on a fixed, shorter and user-specified history of exposure compared to MSMs. By default, the latter represents the treatment causal effect of interest based on a treatment history defined by the …
Estimating Percentile-Specific Causal Effects: A Case Study Of Micronutrient Supplementation, Birth Weight, And Infant Mortality, Francesca Dominici, Scott L. Zeger, Giovanni Parmigiani, Joanne Katz, Parul Christian
Estimating Percentile-Specific Causal Effects: A Case Study Of Micronutrient Supplementation, Birth Weight, And Infant Mortality, Francesca Dominici, Scott L. Zeger, Giovanni Parmigiani, Joanne Katz, Parul Christian
Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers
In developing countries, higher infant mortality is partially caused by poor maternal and fetal nutrition. Clinical trials of micronutrient supplementation are aimed at reducing the risk of infant mortality by increasing birth weight. Because infant mortality is greatest among the low birth weight infants (LBW) (• 2500 grams), an effective intervention may need to increase the birth weight among the smallest babies. Although it has been demonstrated that supplementation increases the birth weight in a trial conducted in Nepal, there is inconclusive evidence that the supplementation improves their survival. It has been hypothesized that a potential benefit of the treatment …
Data Adaptive Estimation Of The Treatment Specific Mean, Yue Wang, Oliver Bembom, Mark J. Van Der Laan
Data Adaptive Estimation Of The Treatment Specific Mean, Yue Wang, Oliver Bembom, Mark J. Van Der Laan
U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series
An important problem in epidemiology and medical research is the estimation of the causal effect of a treatment action at a single point in time on the mean of an outcome, possibly within strata of the target population defined by a subset of the baseline covariates. Current approaches to this problem are based on marginal structural models, i.e., parametric models for the marginal distribution of counterfactural outcomes as a function of treatment and effect modifiers. The various estimators developed in this context furthermore each depend on a high-dimensional nuisance parameter whose estimation currently also relies on parametric models. Since misspecification …
History-Adjusted Marginal Structural Models And Statically-Optimal Dynamic Treatment Regimes, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Maya L. Petersen
History-Adjusted Marginal Structural Models And Statically-Optimal Dynamic Treatment Regimes, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Maya L. Petersen
U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series
Marginal structural models (MSM) provide a powerful tool for estimating the causal effect of a treatment. These models, introduced by Robins, model the marginal distributions of treatment-specific counterfactual outcomes, possibly conditional on a subset of the baseline covariates. Marginal structural models are particularly useful in the context of longitudinal data structures, in which each subject's treatment and covariate history are measured over time, and an outcome is recorded at a final time point. However, the utility of these models for some applications has been limited by their inability to incorporate modification of the causal effect of treatment by time-varying covariates. …
Estimation Of Direct And Indirect Causal Effects In Longitudinal Studies, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Maya L. Petersen
Estimation Of Direct And Indirect Causal Effects In Longitudinal Studies, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Maya L. Petersen
U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series
The causal effect of a treatment on an outcome is generally mediated by several intermediate variables. Estimation of the component of the causal effect of a treatment that is mediated by a given intermediate variable (the indirect effect of the treatment), and the component that is not mediated by that intermediate variable (the direct effect of the treatment) is often relevant to mechanistic understanding and to the design of clinical and public health interventions. Under the assumption of no-unmeasured confounders, Robins & Greenland (1992) and Pearl (2000), develop two identifiability results for direct and indirect causal effects. They define an …
A Bootstrap Confidence Interval Procedure For The Treatment Effect Using Propensity Score Subclassification, Wanzhu Tu, Xiao-Hua Zhou
A Bootstrap Confidence Interval Procedure For The Treatment Effect Using Propensity Score Subclassification, Wanzhu Tu, Xiao-Hua Zhou
UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series
In the analysis of observational studies, propensity score subclassification has been shown to be a powerful method for adjusting unbalanced covariates for the purpose of causal inferences. One practical difficulty in carrying out such an analysis is to obtain a correct variance estimate for such inferences, while reducing bias in the estimate of the treatment effect due to an imbalance in the measured covariates. In this paper, we propose a bootstrap procedure for the inferences concerning the average treatment effect; our bootstrap method is based on an extension of Efron’s bias-corrected accelerated (BCa) bootstrap confidence interval to a two-sample problem. …
Analysis Of Longitudinal Marginal Structural Models , Jennifer F. Bryan, Zhuo Yu, Mark J. Van Der Laan
Analysis Of Longitudinal Marginal Structural Models , Jennifer F. Bryan, Zhuo Yu, Mark J. Van Der Laan
U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series
In this article we construct and study estimators of the causal effect of a time-dependent treatment on survival in longitudinal studies. We employ a particular marginal structural model (MSM), and follow a general methodology for constructing estimating functions in censored data models. The inverse probability of treatment weighted (IPTW) estimator is used as an initial estimator and the corresponding treatment-orthogonalized, one-step estimator is consistent and asymptotically linear when the treatment mechanism is consistently estimated. We extend these methods to handle informative censoring. A simulation study demonstrates that the the treatment-orthogonalized, one-step estimator is superior to the IPTW estimator in terms …
An Empirical Study Of Marginal Structural Models For Time-Independent Treatment, Tanya A. Henneman, Mark J. Van Der Laan
An Empirical Study Of Marginal Structural Models For Time-Independent Treatment, Tanya A. Henneman, Mark J. Van Der Laan
U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series
In non-randomized treatment studies a significant problem for statisticians is determining how best to adjust for confounders. Marginal structural models (MSMs) and inverse probability of treatment weighted (IPTW) estimators are useful in analyzing the causal effect of treatment in observational studies. Given an IPTW estimator a doubly robust augmented IPTW (AIPTW) estimator orthogonalizes it resulting in a more e±cient estimator than the IPTW estimator. One purpose of this paper is to make a practical comparison between the IPTW estimator and the doubly robust AIPTW estimator via a series of Monte- Carlo simulations. We also consider the selection of the optimal …
Estimating Causal Parameters In Marginal Structural Models With Unmeasured Confounders Using Instrumental Variables, Tanya A. Henneman, Mark Johannes Van Der Laan, Alan E. Hubbard
Estimating Causal Parameters In Marginal Structural Models With Unmeasured Confounders Using Instrumental Variables, Tanya A. Henneman, Mark Johannes Van Der Laan, Alan E. Hubbard
U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series
For statisticians analyzing medical data, a significant problem in determining the causal effect of a treatment on a particular outcome of interest, is how to control for unmeasured confounders. Techniques using instrumental variables (IV) have been developed to estimate causal parameters in the presence of unmeasured confounders. In this paper we apply IV methods to both linear and non-linear marginal structural models. We study a specific class of generalized estimating equations that is appropriate to these data, and compare the performance of the resulting estimator to the standard IV method, a two-stage least squares procedure. Our results are applied to …