A Tale of Two Datasets: Representativeness and Generalisability of Inference for Samples of Networks

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Main Authors: Krivitsky, Pavel N., Coletti, Pietro, Hens, Niel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
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author Krivitsky, Pavel N.
Coletti, Pietro
Hens, Niel
author_facet Krivitsky, Pavel N.
Coletti, Pietro
Hens, Niel
contents The last two decades have seen considerable progress in foundational aspects of statistical network analysis, but the path from theory to application is not straightforward. Two large, heterogeneous samples of small networks of within-household contacts in Belgium were collected using two different but complementary sampling designs: one smaller but with all contacts in each household observed, the other larger and more representative but recording contacts of only one person per household. We wish to combine their strengths to learn the social forces that shape household contact formation and facilitate simulation for prediction of disease spread, while generalising to the population of households in the region. To accomplish this, we describe a flexible framework for specifying multi-network models in the exponential family class and identify the requirements for inference and prediction under this framework to be consistent, identifiable, and generalisable, even when data are incomplete; explore how these requirements may be violated in practice; and develop a suite of quantitative and graphical diagnostics for detecting violations and suggesting improvements to candidate models. We report on the effects of network size, geography, and household roles on household contact patterns (activity, heterogeneity in activity, and triadic closure).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2202_03685
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Tale of Two Datasets: Representativeness and Generalisability of Inference for Samples of Networks
Krivitsky, Pavel N.
Coletti, Pietro
Hens, Niel
Methodology
Applications
The last two decades have seen considerable progress in foundational aspects of statistical network analysis, but the path from theory to application is not straightforward. Two large, heterogeneous samples of small networks of within-household contacts in Belgium were collected using two different but complementary sampling designs: one smaller but with all contacts in each household observed, the other larger and more representative but recording contacts of only one person per household. We wish to combine their strengths to learn the social forces that shape household contact formation and facilitate simulation for prediction of disease spread, while generalising to the population of households in the region. To accomplish this, we describe a flexible framework for specifying multi-network models in the exponential family class and identify the requirements for inference and prediction under this framework to be consistent, identifiable, and generalisable, even when data are incomplete; explore how these requirements may be violated in practice; and develop a suite of quantitative and graphical diagnostics for detecting violations and suggesting improvements to candidate models. We report on the effects of network size, geography, and household roles on household contact patterns (activity, heterogeneity in activity, and triadic closure).
title A Tale of Two Datasets: Representativeness and Generalisability of Inference for Samples of Networks
topic Methodology
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.03685