Formulating causal questions and principled statistical answers.
Formulating causal questions and principled statistical answers.
复制标题
DOI:
10.1002/sim.8741
复制
发表时间:
2020-12-30
影响因子:
2
通讯作者:
“on behalf of” the topic group Causal Inference (TG7) of the STRATOS initiative
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Goetghebeur E;le Cessie S;De Stavola B;Moodie EE;Waernbaum I;“on behalf of” the topic group Causal Inference (TG7) of the STRATOS initiative
Although review papers on causal inference methods are now available, there is a lack of introductory overviews on what they can render and on the guiding criteria for choosing one particular method. This tutorial gives an overview in situations where an exposure of interest is set at a chosen baseline (“point exposure”) and the target outcome arises at a later time point. We first phrase relevant causal questions and make a case for being specific about the possible exposure levels involved and the populations for which the question is relevant. Using the potential outcomes framework, we describe principled definitions of causal effects and of estimation approaches classified according to whether they invoke the no unmeasured confounding assumption (including outcome regression and propensity score‐based methods) or an instrumental variable with added assumptions. We mainly focus on continuous outcomes and causal average treatment effects. We discuss interpretation, challenges, and potential pitfalls and illustrate application using a “simulation learner,” that mimics the effect of various breastfeeding interventions on a child's later development. This involves a typical simulation component with generated exposure, covariate, and outcome data inspired by a randomized intervention study. The simulation learner further generates various (linked) exposure types with a set of possible values per observation unit, from which observed as well as potential outcome data are generated. It thus provides true values of several causal effects. R code for data generation and analysis is available on www.ofcaus.org, where SAS and Stata code for analysis is also provided.
登录
查看更多内容
影响因子:
5
作者:
De Stavola BL;Daniel RM;Ploubidis GB;Micali N
通讯作者:
Micali N
DOI:
10.1080/01621459.2012.734171
发表时间:
2012-12-01
影响因子:
3.7
作者:
Clarke, Paul S.;Windmeijer, Frank
通讯作者:
Windmeijer, Frank
影响因子:
5.4
作者:
Boef, Anna G. C.;le Cessie, Saskia;den Elzen, Wendy P. J.
通讯作者:
den Elzen, Wendy P. J.
影响因子:
3.7
作者:
Angrist, JD;Imbens, GW;Rubin, DB
通讯作者:
Rubin, DB
DOI:
10.1093/biostatistics/kxq053
发表时间:
2011-04
期刊:
Biostatistics (Oxford, England)
影响因子:
--
作者:
Fischer K;Goetghebeur E;Vrijens B;White IR
通讯作者:
White IR