Robust CATE Estimation Using Novel Ensemble Methods

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Machluf, Oshri, Frostig, Tzviel, Shoham, Gal, Milo, Tomer, Berkman, Elad, Pryluk, Raviv
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Machluf, Oshri
Frostig, Tzviel
Shoham, Gal
Milo, Tomer
Berkman, Elad
Pryluk, Raviv
author_facet Machluf, Oshri
Frostig, Tzviel
Shoham, Gal
Milo, Tomer
Berkman, Elad
Pryluk, Raviv
contents The estimation of Conditional Average Treatment Effects (CATE) is crucial for understanding the heterogeneity of treatment effects in clinical trials. We evaluate the performance of common methods, including causal forests and various meta-learners, across a diverse set of scenarios, revealing that each of the methods struggles in one or more of the tested scenarios. Given the inherent uncertainty of the data-generating process in real-life scenarios, the robustness of a CATE estimator to various scenarios is critical for its reliability. To address this limitation of existing methods, we propose two new ensemble methods that integrate multiple estimators to enhance prediction stability and performance - Stacked X-Learner which uses the X-Learner with model stacking for estimating the nuisance functions, and Consensus Based Averaging (CBA), which averages only the models with highest internal agreement. We show that these models achieve good performance across a wide range of scenarios varying in complexity, sample size and structure of the underlying-mechanism, including a biologically driven model for PD-L1 inhibition pathway for cancer treatment. Furthermore, we demonstrate improved performance by the Stacked X-Learner also when comparing to other ensemble methods, including R-Stacking, Causal-Stacking and others.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_03690
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Robust CATE Estimation Using Novel Ensemble Methods
Machluf, Oshri
Frostig, Tzviel
Shoham, Gal
Milo, Tomer
Berkman, Elad
Pryluk, Raviv
Methodology
Machine Learning
The estimation of Conditional Average Treatment Effects (CATE) is crucial for understanding the heterogeneity of treatment effects in clinical trials. We evaluate the performance of common methods, including causal forests and various meta-learners, across a diverse set of scenarios, revealing that each of the methods struggles in one or more of the tested scenarios. Given the inherent uncertainty of the data-generating process in real-life scenarios, the robustness of a CATE estimator to various scenarios is critical for its reliability. To address this limitation of existing methods, we propose two new ensemble methods that integrate multiple estimators to enhance prediction stability and performance - Stacked X-Learner which uses the X-Learner with model stacking for estimating the nuisance functions, and Consensus Based Averaging (CBA), which averages only the models with highest internal agreement. We show that these models achieve good performance across a wide range of scenarios varying in complexity, sample size and structure of the underlying-mechanism, including a biologically driven model for PD-L1 inhibition pathway for cancer treatment. Furthermore, we demonstrate improved performance by the Stacked X-Learner also when comparing to other ensemble methods, including R-Stacking, Causal-Stacking and others.
title Robust CATE Estimation Using Novel Ensemble Methods
topic Methodology
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.03690