Matching on Generalized Propensity Scores with Continuous Exposures

DOI10.1080/01621459.2022.2144737arXiv1812.06575MaRDI QIDQ6154030FDOQ6154030

Authors: Xiao Wu, Fabrizia Mealli, Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, Francesca Dominici, Danielle Braun 

Publication date: 19 March 2024

Published in: Journal of the American Statistical Association (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In the context of a binary treatment, matching is a well-established approach in causal inference. However, in the context of a continuous treatment or exposure, matching is still underdeveloped. We propose an innovative matching approach to estimate an average causal exposure-response function under the setting of continuous exposures that relies on the generalized propensity score (GPS). Our approach maintains the following attractive features of matching: a) clear separation between the design and the analysis; b) robustness to model misspecification or to the presence of extreme values of the estimated GPS; c) straightforward assessment of covariate balance. We first introduce an assumption of identifiability, called local weak unconfoundedness. Under this assumption and mild smoothness conditions, we provide theoretical guarantees that our proposed matching estimator attains point-wise consistency and asymptotic normality. In simulations, our proposed matching approach outperforms existing methods under settings of model misspecification or the presence of extreme values of the estimated GPS. We apply our proposed method to estimate the average causal exposure-response function between long-term PM${}_{2.5}$ exposure and all-cause mortality among 68.5 million Medicare enrollees, 2000-2016. We found strong evidence of a harmful effect of long-term PM${}_{2.5}$ exposure on mortality. Code for the proposed matching approach is provided in the CausalGPS R package, which is available on CRAN and provides a computationally efficient implementation.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.06575

zbMATH Keywords

causal inferenceobservational studynonparametriccovariate balancecontinuous treatment

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistics (62-XX)

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Cited In (1)

• Targeted learning in observational studies with multi-valued treatments: an evaluation of antipsychotic drug treatment safety

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