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通过协变量调整消除因果目标选择偏差的共同原因原则AI 解读

Average treatment effects (ATEs) may be subject to selection bias when they are estimated among only a nonrepresentative subset of the target population. Selection bias can sometimes be eliminated by conditioning on a “sufficient adjustment set” of covariates, even for some forms of missingness not at random (MNAR). Without requiring full specification of the causal structure, we consider sufficient adjustment sets to allow nonparametric identification of conditional ATEs in…

含潜在中介变量的因果推断AI 解读

Summary Proximal causal inference was recently proposed as a framework to identify causal effects from observational data in the presence of hidden confounders for which proxies are available. In this paper, we extend the proximal causal inference approach to settings where identification of causal effects hinges upon a set of mediators that are not observed, yet error prone proxies of the hidden mediators are measured. Specifically, (i) we establish causal hidden mediation…

近端中介分析AI 解读

Summary A common concern when trying to draw causal inferences from observational data is that the measured covariates are insufficiently rich to account for all sources of confounding. In practice, many of the covariates may only be proxies of the latent confounding mechanism. Recent work has shown that in certain settings where the standard no-unmeasured-confounding assumption fails, proxy variables can be leveraged to identify causal effects. Results currently exist for…

离散情形下因果推断的自动化方法AI 解读

When causal quantities cannot be point identified, researchers often pursue partial identification to quantify the range of possible values. However, the peculiarities of applied research conditions can make this analytically intractable. We present a general and automated approach to causal inference in discrete settings. We show causal questions with discrete data reduce to polynomial programming problems, and we present an algorithm to automatically bound causal effects…

无环有向混合图的嵌套马尔可夫性质AI 解读

Conditional independence models associated with directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) may be characterized in at least three different ways: via a factorization, the global Markov property (given by the d-separation criterion), and the local Markov property. Marginals of DAG models also imply equality constraints that are not conditional independences; the well-known “Verma constraint” is an example. Constraints of this type are used for testing edges, and in a computationally…

Ilya Shpitser 对《广义线性模型参数的少假设推断》的讨论AI 解读

A hallmark of principled causal inference is being careful and explicit about assumptions underlying data analysis. In their timely paper, the authors, Professor Stijn Vansteelandt and Oliver Dukes, adopt this view to provide a general roadmap for cautious statistical inference about target parameters. The authors distinguish between assumptions made for substantive reasons and those made for convenience. An important feature of their approach is that an estimand with…

网络因果效应的自动 g 计算AI 解读

Methods for inferring average causal effects have traditionally relied on two key assumptions: (i) the intervention received by one unit cannot causally influence the outcome of another; and (ii) units can be organized into nonoverlapping groups such that outcomes of units in separate groups are independent. In this article, we develop new statistical methods for causal inference based on a single realization of a network of connected units for which neither assumption (i)…

总体间接因果效应的稳健推断：广义前门准则AI 解读

Summary Standard methods for inference about direct and indirect effects require stringent no-unmeasured-confounding assumptions which often fail to hold in practice, particularly in observational studies. The goal of the paper is to introduce a new form of indirect effect, the population intervention indirect effect, that can be non-parametrically identified in the presence of an unmeasured common cause of exposure and outcome. This new type of indirect effect captures the…

尼日利亚 PEPFAR 项目中抗逆转录病毒治疗经依从性传导的路径特定效应AI 解读

Since the early 2000s, evidence has accumulated for a significant differential effect of first-line antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimens on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral load suppression. This finding was replicated in our data from the Harvard President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program in Nigeria. Investigators were interested in finding the source of these differences, i.e., understanding the mechanisms through which one regimen outperforms…

通过图示干预层级统一因果推断AI 解读

Identifying causal parameters from observational data is fraught with subtleties due to the issues of selection bias and confounding. In addition, more complex questions of interest, such as effects of treatment on the treated and mediated effects may not always be identified even in data where treatment assignment is known and under investigator control, or may be identified under one causal model but not another. Increasingly complex effects of interest, coupled with a…

混杂变量的定义AI 解读

The causal inference literature has provided a clear formal definition of confounding expressed in terms of counterfactual independence. The literature has not, however, come to any consensus on a formal definition of a confounder, as it has given priority to the concept of confounding over that of a confounder. We consider a number of candidate definitions arising from various more informal statements made in the literature. We consider the properties satisfied by each…

因果中介分析的半参数理论：效率界、多重稳健性与敏感性分析AI 解读

Whilst estimation of the marginal (total) causal effect of a point exposure on an outcome is arguably the most common objective of experimental and observational studies in the health and social sciences, in recent years, investigators have also become increasingly interested in mediation analysis. Specifically, upon evaluating the total effect of the exposure, investigators routinely wish to make inferences about the direct or indirect pathways of the effect of the exposure…