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Main Authors: Martin, Melissa Lynne, Brook, Juliette, Rush, Sage, Satterthwaite, Theodore D., Barnett, Ian J.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22147
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author Martin, Melissa Lynne
Brook, Juliette
Rush, Sage
Satterthwaite, Theodore D.
Barnett, Ian J.
author_facet Martin, Melissa Lynne
Brook, Juliette
Rush, Sage
Satterthwaite, Theodore D.
Barnett, Ian J.
contents Multivariate change point detection is the process of identifying distributional shifts in time-ordered data across multiple features. This task is particularly challenging when the number of features is large relative to the number of observations. This problem is often present in mobile health, where behavioral changes in at-risk patients must be detected in real time in order to prompt timely interventions. We propose a variance component score test (VC*) for detecting changes in feature means and/or variances using only pre-change point data to estimate distributional parameters. Through simulation studies, we show that VC* has higher power than existing methods. Moreover, we demonstrate that reducing bias by using only pre-change point days to estimate parameters outweighs the increased estimator variances in most scenarios. Lastly, we apply VC* and competing methods to passively collected smartphone data in adolescents and young adults with affective instability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_22147
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Variance component score test for multivariate change point detection with applications to mobile health
Martin, Melissa Lynne
Brook, Juliette
Rush, Sage
Satterthwaite, Theodore D.
Barnett, Ian J.
Methodology
Multivariate change point detection is the process of identifying distributional shifts in time-ordered data across multiple features. This task is particularly challenging when the number of features is large relative to the number of observations. This problem is often present in mobile health, where behavioral changes in at-risk patients must be detected in real time in order to prompt timely interventions. We propose a variance component score test (VC*) for detecting changes in feature means and/or variances using only pre-change point data to estimate distributional parameters. Through simulation studies, we show that VC* has higher power than existing methods. Moreover, we demonstrate that reducing bias by using only pre-change point days to estimate parameters outweighs the increased estimator variances in most scenarios. Lastly, we apply VC* and competing methods to passively collected smartphone data in adolescents and young adults with affective instability.
title Variance component score test for multivariate change point detection with applications to mobile health
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22147