s-ID: Causal Effect Identification in a Sub-Population

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Abouei, Amir Mohammad, Mokhtarian, Ehsan, Kiyavash, Negar
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Abouei, Amir Mohammad
Mokhtarian, Ehsan
Kiyavash, Negar
author_facet Abouei, Amir Mohammad
Mokhtarian, Ehsan
Kiyavash, Negar
contents Causal inference in a sub-population involves identifying the causal effect of an intervention on a specific subgroup, which is distinguished from the whole population through the influence of systematic biases in the sampling process. However, ignoring the subtleties introduced by sub-populations can either lead to erroneous inference or limit the applicability of existing methods. We introduce and advocate for a causal inference problem in sub-populations (henceforth called s-ID), in which we merely have access to observational data of the targeted sub-population (as opposed to the entire population). Existing inference problems in sub-populations operate on the premise that the given data distributions originate from the entire population, thus, cannot tackle the s-ID problem. To address this gap, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions that must hold in the causal graph for a causal effect in a sub-population to be identifiable from the observational distribution of that sub-population. Given these conditions, we present a sound and complete algorithm for the s-ID problem.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_02281
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle s-ID: Causal Effect Identification in a Sub-Population
Abouei, Amir Mohammad
Mokhtarian, Ehsan
Kiyavash, Negar
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Methodology
Causal inference in a sub-population involves identifying the causal effect of an intervention on a specific subgroup, which is distinguished from the whole population through the influence of systematic biases in the sampling process. However, ignoring the subtleties introduced by sub-populations can either lead to erroneous inference or limit the applicability of existing methods. We introduce and advocate for a causal inference problem in sub-populations (henceforth called s-ID), in which we merely have access to observational data of the targeted sub-population (as opposed to the entire population). Existing inference problems in sub-populations operate on the premise that the given data distributions originate from the entire population, thus, cannot tackle the s-ID problem. To address this gap, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions that must hold in the causal graph for a causal effect in a sub-population to be identifiable from the observational distribution of that sub-population. Given these conditions, we present a sound and complete algorithm for the s-ID problem.
title s-ID: Causal Effect Identification in a Sub-Population
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.02281