Identification and multiply robust estimation of causal effects via instrumental variables from an auxiliary population

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Li, Wei, Liu, Jiapeng, Ding, Peng, Geng, Zhi
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Li, Wei
Liu, Jiapeng
Ding, Peng
Geng, Zhi
author_facet Li, Wei
Liu, Jiapeng
Ding, Peng
Geng, Zhi
contents Estimating causal effects in a target population with unmeasured confounders is challenging, especially when instrumental variables (IVs) are unavailable. However, IVs from auxiliary populations with similar problems can help infer causal effects in the target population. While the homogeneous conditional average treatment effect assumption has been widely used for effect transportability, it has not been explored in IV-based data fusion. We include it as a basic approach, though it may be biased when treatment effect heterogeneity exists. As an alternative approach, we introduce the equi-confounding assumption that the unmeasured confounding bias remains the same after adjusting for observed covariates, while allowing conditional average treatment effects to differ across populations. This allows us to identify the confounding bias in the auxiliary population and remove it from the treatment-outcome association in the target population to recover the causal effect. We develop multiply robust estimators under both approaches and demonstrate them through simulation studies and a real data application.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_18166
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Identification and multiply robust estimation of causal effects via instrumental variables from an auxiliary population
Li, Wei
Liu, Jiapeng
Ding, Peng
Geng, Zhi
Methodology
Estimating causal effects in a target population with unmeasured confounders is challenging, especially when instrumental variables (IVs) are unavailable. However, IVs from auxiliary populations with similar problems can help infer causal effects in the target population. While the homogeneous conditional average treatment effect assumption has been widely used for effect transportability, it has not been explored in IV-based data fusion. We include it as a basic approach, though it may be biased when treatment effect heterogeneity exists. As an alternative approach, we introduce the equi-confounding assumption that the unmeasured confounding bias remains the same after adjusting for observed covariates, while allowing conditional average treatment effects to differ across populations. This allows us to identify the confounding bias in the auxiliary population and remove it from the treatment-outcome association in the target population to recover the causal effect. We develop multiply robust estimators under both approaches and demonstrate them through simulation studies and a real data application.
title Identification and multiply robust estimation of causal effects via instrumental variables from an auxiliary population
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18166