The potential for bias in principal causal effect estimation when treatment received depends on a key covariate

DOI10.1214/11-AOAS477zbMATH Open1228.62153arXiv1111.1509OpenAlexW3098198224WikidataQ40775058 ScholiaQ40775058MaRDI QIDQ652349FDOQ652349

Authors: Corwin Matthew Zigler, Thomas R. Belin 

Publication date: 14 December 2011

Published in: The Annals of Applied Statistics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Motivated by a potential-outcomes perspective, the idea of principal stratification has been widely recognized for its relevance in settings susceptible to posttreatment selection bias such as randomized clinical trials where treatment received can differ from treatment assigned. In one such setting, we address subtleties involved in inference for causal effects when using a key covariate to predict membership in latent principal strata. We show that when treatment received can differ from treatment assigned in both study arms, incorporating a stratum-predictive covariate can make estimates of the "complier average causal effect" (CACE) derive from observations in the two treatment arms with different covariate distributions. Adopting a Bayesian perspective and using Markov chain Monte Carlo for computation, we develop posterior checks that characterize the extent to which incorporating the pretreatment covariate endangers estimation of the CACE. We apply the method to analyze a clinical trial comparing two treatments for jaw fractures in which the study protocol allowed surgeons to overrule both possible randomized treatment assignments based on their clinical judgment and the data contained a key covariate (injury severity) predictive of treatment received.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1111.1509

Recommendations

• Biased estimates of treatment effect in randomized experiments with nonlinear regressions and omitted covariates
• Estimating a multivariate treatment effect under a biased allocation rule
• Estimation and Inference for the Causal Effect of Receiving Treatment on a Multinomial Outcome
• Identification and estimation of principal causal effects in randomized experiments with treatment switching
• Estimation and inference for the causal effect of receiving treatment on a multinomial outcome: an alternative approach
• Estimating a treatment effect under biased sampling.
• Treatment effect estimation with covariate measurement error
• Estimating a multiplicative treatment effect under biased allocation

zbMATH Keywords

noncomplianceprincipal stratificationcomplier average causal effectprincipal effect

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Bayesian inference (62F15) Applications of statistics to biology and medical sciences; meta analysis (62P10) Numerical analysis or methods applied to Markov chains (65C40) Medical applications (general) (92C50) General considerations in statistical decision theory (62C05)

Cites Work

• Inference from iterative simulation using multiple sequences
• Principal stratification in causal inference
• Identification of Causal Effects Using Instrumental Variables
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Sampling-Based Approaches to Calculating Marginal Densities
• The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects
• Stochastic Relaxation, Gibbs Distributions, and the Bayesian Restoration of Images
• Statistics and Causal Inference
• Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects
• Sensitivity Analysis for the Assessment of Causal Vaccine Effects on Viral Load in HIV Vaccine Trials
• Assessing the effect of an influenza vaccine in an encouragement design
• Sensitivity Analyses Comparing Outcomes Only Existing in a Subset Selected Post‐Randomization, Conditional on Covariates, with Application to HIV Vaccine Trials
• Bayesian inference for causal effects: The role of randomization
• Bayesian inference for causal effects in randomized experiments with noncompliance
• Defining and estimating intervention effects for groups that will develop an auxiliary outcome
• Causal Vaccine Effects on Binary Postinfection Outcomes
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Principal Stratification Approach to Broken Randomized Experiments
• Addressing complications of intention-to-treat analysis in the combined presence of all-or-none treatment-noncompliance and subsequent missing outcomes
• The compliance score as a regressor in randomized trials
• Principal stratification with predictors of compliance for randomized trials with 2 active treatments
• Principal Stratification for Causal Inference With Extended Partial Compliance
• On the Effect of Treatment among Would-Be Treatment Compliers: An Analysis of the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial
• Clustered Encouragement Designs with Individual Noncompliance: Bayesian Inference with Randomization, and Application to Advance Directive Forms
• The potential for bias in principal causal effect estimation when treatment received depends on a key covariate
• An application of principal stratification to control for institutionalization at follow-up in studies of substance abuse treatment programs

Cited In (4)

• Simple methods for the estimation and sensitivity analysis of principal strata effects using marginal structural models: application to a bone fracture prevention trial
• Bayesian phase II clinical trial design with noncompliance
• A likelihood-based analysis for relaxing the exclusion restriction in randomized experiments with noncompliance
• The potential for bias in principal causal effect estimation when treatment received depends on a key covariate

Uses Software

• BayesDA

This page was built for publication: The potential for bias in principal causal effect estimation when treatment received depends on a key covariate

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q652349)