Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Marginal Methods And Software For Clustered Data With Cluster- And Group-Size Informativeness., Mary Elizabeth Gregg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Clustered data result when observations have some natural organizational association. In such data, cluster size is defined as the number of observations belonging to a cluster. A phenomenon termed informative cluster size (ICS) occurs when observation outcomes vary in a systematic way related to the cluster size. An additional form of informativeness, termed informative within-cluster group size (IWCGS), arises when the distribution of group-defining categorical covariates within clusters similarly carries information related to outcomes. Standard methods for the marginal analysis of clustered data can produce biased estimates and inference when data have informativeness. A reweighting methodology has been developed that …