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通过交叉代理平衡的近似因果推断AI 解读

Proximal causal inference identifies causal effects in the presence of unmeasured confounding by drawing on two sets of proxy variables. Identification typically utilizes bridge functions, defined as solutions to integral equations. However, the mechanism by which fitted bridge functions correct for confounding bias remains opaque, offering little to interpret, inspect or stress-test. We show that the defining equation of a treatment bridge function is already a balance…

迈向随机对照试验的最优估计量AI 解读

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are fundamental tools for causal inference across technology companies, pharmaceutical research, and federal agencies. While the standard difference-in-means estimator provides unbiased treatment effect estimates, it often lacks precision, particularly when treatment effects are heterogeneous or outcomes exhibit heavy-tailed distributions. Although numerous precision-enhancing methods exist---from covariate adjustment techniques to…

TEA-Time：跨时间迁移处理效应AI 解读

Treatment effects estimated from a randomized controlled trial are local not only to the study population but also to the time at which the trial was conducted. The literature on generalizing experimental findings to new populations is extensive, yet transporting effects across time has received far less attention, and even defining the target estimand is nonobvious. We formalize the transported average treatment effect under a separable temporal effects assumption, derive…

因果推断中的外推正则化AI 解读

Many common estimators in machine learning and causal inference are linear smoothers, where the prediction is a weighted average of the training outcomes. Some estimators, such as ordinary least squares and kernel ridge regression, allow for arbitrarily negative weights, which improve feature imbalance but often at the cost of increased dependence on parametric modeling assumptions and higher variance. By contrast, estimators like importance weighting and random forests…

理解近端因果推断AI 解读

Proximal causal inference (PCI) has emerged as a promising framework for identifying and estimating causal effects in the presence of unobserved confounders. While many traditional causal inference methods rely on the assumption of no unobserved confounding, this assumption is likely often violated. PCI addresses this challenge by relying on an alternative set of assumptions regarding the relationships between treatment, outcome, and auxiliary variables that serve as proxies…

用于因果推断的可控生成式沙盒AI 解读

Method validation and study design in causal inference rely on synthetic data with known counterfactuals. Existing simulators trade off distributional realism, the ability to capture mixed-type and multimodal tabular data, against causal controllability, including explicit control over overlap, unmeasured confounding, and treatment effect heterogeneity. We introduce CausalMix, a variational generative framework that closes this gap by coupling a mixture of Gaussian latent…

基于图机器学习的网络因果效应双重稳健估计AI 解读

We address the challenge of inferring causal effects in social network data. This results in challenges due to interference -- where a unit's outcome is affected by neighbors' treatments -- and network-induced confounding factors. While there is extensive literature focusing on estimating causal effects in social network setups, a majority of them make prior assumptions about the form of network-induced confounding mechanisms. Such strong assumptions are rarely likely to…

结合实验与观察数据的双重机器学习方法AI 解读

Experimental and observational studies often lack validity due to untestable assumptions. We propose a double machine learning approach to combine experimental and observational studies, allowing practitioners to test for assumption violations and estimate treatment effects consistently. Our framework proposes a falsification test for external validity and ignorability under milder assumptions. We provide consistent treatment effect estimators even when one of the…

精准精神健康：通过数据整合预测抑郁症的异质性处理效应AI 解读

When treating depression, clinicians are interested in determining the optimal treatment for a given patient, which is challenging given the amount of treatments available. To advance individualized treatment allocation, integrating data across multiple randomized controlled trials (RCTs) can enhance our understanding of treatment effect heterogeneity by increasing available information. However, extending these inferences to individuals outside of the original RCTs remains…

用于因果效应部分识别的数据融合AI 解读

Data fusion techniques integrate information from heterogeneous data sources to improve learning, generalization, and decision making across data sciences. In causal inference, these methods leverage rich observational data to improve causal effect estimation, while maintaining the trustworthiness of randomized controlled trials. Existing approaches often relax the strong no unobserved confounding assumption by instead assuming exchangeability of counterfactual outcomes…

结局测量不同的研究整合用于因果推断时的警示AI 解读

Data integration approaches are increasingly used to enhance the efficiency and generalizability of studies. However, a key limitation of these methods is the assumption that outcome measures are identical across datasets -- an assumption that often does not hold in practice. Consider the following opioid use disorder (OUD) studies: the XBOT trial and the POAT study, both evaluating the effect of medications for OUD on withdrawal symptom severity (not the primary outcome of…

我们遗漏了谁？识别代表性不足人群的系统方法AI 解读

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) serve as the cornerstone for understanding causal effects, yet extending inferences to target populations presents challenges due to effect heterogeneity and underrepresentation. Our paper addresses the critical issue of identifying and characterizing underrepresented subgroups in RCTs, proposing a novel framework for refining target populations to improve generalizability. We introduce an optimization-based approach, Rashomon Set of…

将试验推断推广到目标总体AI 解读

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are pivotal in generating internally valid estimates with minimal assumptions, serving as a cornerstone for researchers dedicated to advancing causal inference methods. However, extending these findings beyond the experimental cohort to achieve externally valid estimates is crucial for broader scientific inquiry. This paper delves into the forefront of addressing these external validity challenges, encapsulating the essence of a…

可穿戴设备、传感器与分布型数据的可解释因果推断AI 解读

Many modern causal questions ask how treatments affect complex outcomes that are measured using wearable devices and sensors. Current analysis approaches require summarizing these data into scalar statistics (e.g., the mean), but these summaries can be misleading. For example, disparate distributions can have the same means, variances, and other statistics. Researchers can overcome the loss of information by instead representing the data as distributions. We develop an…

用于因果推断的变量重要性匹配AI 解读

Our goal is to produce methods for observational causal inference that are auditable, easy to troubleshoot, accurate for treatment effect estimation, and scalable to high-dimensional data. We describe a general framework called Model-to-Match that achieves these goals by (i) learning a distance metric via outcome modeling, (ii) creating matched groups using the distance metric, and (iii) using the matched groups to estimate treatment effects. Model-to-Match uses variable…

合成控制权重是否构成平衡得分？AI 解读

In this short note, I outline conditions under which conditioning on Synthetic Control (SC) weights emulates a randomized control trial where the treatment status is independent of potential outcomes. Specifically, I demonstrate that if there exist SC weights such that (i) the treatment effects are exactly identified and (ii) these weights are uniformly and cumulatively bounded, then SC weights are balancing scores.

因果推断方法的验证：Credence 生成式框架AI 解读

The fundamental challenge of drawing causal inference is that counterfactual outcomes are not fully observed for any unit. Furthermore, in observational studies, treatment assignment is likely to be confounded. Many statistical methods have emerged for causal inference under unconfoundedness conditions given pre-treatment covariates, including propensity score-based methods, prognostic score-based methods, and doubly robust methods. Unfortunately for applied researchers,…