Biostatistics Commons^™

Using Ensemble-Based Methods For Directly Estimating Causal Effects: An Investigation Of Tree-Based G-Computation, Peter C. Austin

Peter Austin

Researchers are increasingly using observational or nonrandomized data to estimate causal treatment effects. Essential to the production of high-quality evidence is the ability to reduce or minimize the confounding that frequently occurs in observational studies. When using the potential outcome framework to define causal treatment effects, one requires the potential outcome under each possible treatment. However, only the outcome under the actual treatment received is observed, whereas the potential outcomes under the other treatments are considered missing data. Some authors have proposed that parametric regression models be used to estimate potential outcomes. In this study, we examined the use of …