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Propensity score weighting for causal subgroup analysis.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Yang, S; Lorenzi, E; Papadogeorgou, G; Wojdyla, DM; Li, F; Thomas, LE
Published in: Stat Med
August 30, 2021

A common goal in comparative effectiveness research is to estimate treatment effects on prespecified subpopulations of patients. Though widely used in medical research, causal inference methods for such subgroup analysis (SGA) remain underdeveloped, particularly in observational studies. In this article, we develop a suite of analytical methods and visualization tools for causal SGA. First, we introduce the estimand of subgroup weighted average treatment effect and provide the corresponding propensity score weighting estimator. We show that balancing covariates within a subgroup bounds the bias of the estimator of subgroup causal effects. Second, we propose to use the overlap weighting (OW) method to achieve exact balance within subgroups. We further propose a method that combines OW and LASSO, to balance the bias-variance tradeoff in SGA. Finally, we design a new diagnostic graph-the Connect-S plot-for visualizing the subgroup covariate balance. Extensive simulation studies are presented to compare the proposed method with several existing methods. We apply the proposed methods to the patient-centered results for uterine fibroids (COMPARE-UF) registry data to evaluate alternative management options for uterine fibroids for relief of symptoms and quality of life.

Duke Scholars

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Published In

Stat Med

DOI

EISSN

1097-0258

Publication Date

August 30, 2021

Volume

40

Issue

19

Start / End Page

4294 / 4309

Location

England

Related Subject Headings

  • Statistics & Probability
  • Research Design
  • Quality of Life
  • Propensity Score
  • Humans
  • Causality
  • Bias
  • 4905 Statistics
  • 4202 Epidemiology
  • 1117 Public Health and Health Services
 

Citation

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Yang, S., Lorenzi, E., Papadogeorgou, G., Wojdyla, D. M., Li, F., & Thomas, L. E. (2021). Propensity score weighting for causal subgroup analysis. Stat Med, 40(19), 4294–4309. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.9029
Yang, Siyun, Elizabeth Lorenzi, Georgia Papadogeorgou, Daniel M. Wojdyla, Fan Li, and Laine E. Thomas. “Propensity score weighting for causal subgroup analysis.Stat Med 40, no. 19 (August 30, 2021): 4294–4309. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.9029.
Yang S, Lorenzi E, Papadogeorgou G, Wojdyla DM, Li F, Thomas LE. Propensity score weighting for causal subgroup analysis. Stat Med. 2021 Aug 30;40(19):4294–309.
Yang, Siyun, et al. “Propensity score weighting for causal subgroup analysis.Stat Med, vol. 40, no. 19, Aug. 2021, pp. 4294–309. Pubmed, doi:10.1002/sim.9029.
Yang S, Lorenzi E, Papadogeorgou G, Wojdyla DM, Li F, Thomas LE. Propensity score weighting for causal subgroup analysis. Stat Med. 2021 Aug 30;40(19):4294–4309.
Journal cover image

Published In

Stat Med

DOI

EISSN

1097-0258

Publication Date

August 30, 2021

Volume

40

Issue

19

Start / End Page

4294 / 4309

Location

England

Related Subject Headings

  • Statistics & Probability
  • Research Design
  • Quality of Life
  • Propensity Score
  • Humans
  • Causality
  • Bias
  • 4905 Statistics
  • 4202 Epidemiology
  • 1117 Public Health and Health Services