Confounding bias, missing data, and selection bias are three common obstacles to valid causal inference in the data sciences. Covariate adjustment is the most pervasive technique for recovering casual effects from confounding bias. In this paper, we introduce a covariate adjustment formulation for controlling confoundi…
Causality-aware methods outperform linear residualization in confounding adjustment for anticausal prediction.
problem Adjusting for confounding in anticausal prediction tasks.
method Causality-aware counterfactual confounding adjustment.
result Causality-aware methods asymptotically outperform linear residualization in predictive performance.
New method estimates treatment effects from high dimensional data.
problem Estimating treatment effects from high dimensional data with confounders.
method Generative modeling approach to backdoor adjustment in variational inference.
result Empirically, estimates interventional likelihood in high dimensional settings.
Study identifies conditions for proxy adjustment in confounded binary treatment outcomes.
problem Average causal effect estimation with a non-differentially mismeasured binary confounder.
method Identifies conditions for proxy adjustment in the presence of a non-differentially mismeasured binary confounder.
result Adjusting for a non-differentially mismeasured binary proxy can improve estimation of the average causal effect.
Study shows how adjusting for a binary proxy can bound causal effects.
problem Bounding causal effects with a binary confounder and proxy.
method Monotonicity assumption applied to a binary confounder and observed proxy.
result Adjusting for a proxy produces a measure of the effect between unadjusted and true measures.
Proposes AAA for efficient association estimation with confounders.
problem Summarizing log odds ratio as a function of confounders.
method Develops efficient DML estimators for AAA.
result Demonstrates practicality and effectiveness of AAA estimators.
SDD improves DD for estimating treatment effects by adjusting for confounding.
problem Estimating treatment effects in observational studies with confounding.
method Synthesized Difference in Differences (SDD) using RCT data to infer correct slopes.
result SDD achieves state-of-the-art performance across synthetic and real datasets.
Satellite imagery helps adjust for unobserved confounders in observational studies.
problem Adjusting for confounding factors in observational studies with non-tabular data like satellite imagery.
method Formalizing conditions for causal effect identification, estimation, and sensitivity analysis.
result Demonstrated the use of satellite imagery as a proxy for unobserved confounders in anti-poverty aid programs.
NICE learns a representation to avoid bad controls in causal inference.
problem Avoiding bad controls in causal inference from observational data.
method Uses invariant risk minimization (IRM) to learn a representation of covariates that avoids bad controls.
result NICE outperforms adjusting for all covariates in cases with unknown collider variables and bad controls.
The study uses pre-trained neural networks to adjust for confounding in non-tabular data.
problem Neglecting non-tabular data sources can lead to biased ATE estimates.
method Leverages latent features from pre-trained neural networks to adjust for confounding.
result Neural networks can achieve fast convergence rates for ATE estimation with latent features.
Formula adjusts steady-state models for control confounding.
problem Learning steady-state models from operational data can be flawed due to control confounding.
method Derives a formula to adjust for control confounding using structural dynamical causal models.
result Estimates a causal steady-state model from closed-loop operational data.
New method tests causal association using noise contrastive backdoor adjustment.
problem Testing causal association in complex settings with many confounders.
method Backdoor-HSIC (bd-HSIC) using HSIC for independence testing.
result Calibrated and powerful for binary and continuous treatments with many confounders.
DOVI improves reinforcement learning with offline data, reducing trial-and-error in critical scenarios.
problem Lack of sample efficiency in deep reinforcement learning for critical applications.
method Proposes DOVI algorithm to incorporate confounded observational data provably efficiently.
result DOVI reduces regret by a multiplicative factor compared to pure online setting, especially when data are informative.
The treatment effects of medications play a key role in guiding medical prescriptions. They are usually assessed with randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which are expensive. Recently, large-scale electronic health records (EHRs) have become available, opening up new opportunities for more cost-effective assessments. …
The empirical practice of using factor models to adjust for shared, unobserved confounders, Z, in observational settings with multiple treatments, A, is widespread in fields including genetics, networks, medicine, and politics. Wang and Blei (2019, WB) formalizes these procedures and develops the …
Weather2vec learns representations to adjust for non-local confounding in air pollution studies.
problem Non-local confounding in evaluating environmental policies and climate events on health outcomes.
method weather2vec framework using balancing scores to learn representations of non-local information.
result The framework effectively adjusts for confounding in air pollution studies.
With the maturation of metabolomics science and proliferation of biobanks, clinical metabolic profiling is an increasingly opportunistic frontier for advancing translational clinical research. Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) approaches provide exciting opportunity to guide feature selection in agnostic metabolic pr…
CATR rationalizes text data to stabilize causal effect estimation.
problem Observational positivity violation in high-dimensional text data.
method Confounding-Aware Token Rationalization (CATR) selects necessary subset of tokens.
result CATR yields more accurate and stable causal effect estimates.
The paper proposes a method to precisely decompose confounders and estimate treatment effects.
problem Estimating treatment effects from observational data with confounder identification and balancing.
method Learning decomposed representations to identify and balance confounders and non-confounders.
result The method achieves more precise treatment effect estimation than existing methods.
The paper addresses causal estimation for text data with apparent overlap violations.
problem Estimating causal effects from text data with unknown confounders and apparent overlap.
method Uses supervised representation learning to create a representation that preserves confounding information while eliminating predictive information, satisfying overlap assumptions.
result Shows how to obtain robust causal estimation in the presence of apparent overlap violations.
New model tackles complex spatio-temporal causal inference with dynamic confounders and functional data.
problem Complex spatio-temporal dynamics and unmeasured confounders hinder causal inference.
method PFD-BDCM, a unified generative framework for spatio-temporal dependencies, functional data, and dynamic confounding.
result PFD-BDCM outperforms existing methods across observational, interventional, and counterfactual queries.
MOCA uses modular attention to estimate causal effects from complex data.
problem Estimating causal effects from observational data with complex, non-linear, and high-dimensional treatment and outcome mechanisms.
method MOCA is a transformer-based framework that separates treatment and outcome modeling through modular design and one-way attention mechanism, with cutting-feedback to prevent outcome influence on treatment representations.
result MOCA outperforms classical estimators and machine learning approaches across various simulated and real-world scenarios.
Algorithm finds causal effects from observational data using auxiliary variables.
problem Estimating causal effects from observational data with confounders.
method Gradient-based optimization using auxiliary variables.
result Algorithm outperforms alternatives in estimating true causal effect.
Deconfounds neural network representation similarity metrics to improve consistency and accuracy.
problem Confounding by population structure in similarity metrics like RSA and CKA.
method Covariate adjustment regression to adjust for confounders.
result Improves detection of semantically similar neural networks and consistency in transfer learning.
New model estimates species population trends from citizen science data.
problem Interannual confounding in citizen science data.
method Double Machine Learning framework to estimate population change and propensity scores for confounding adjustment.
result Spatially detailed trend estimates from citizen science data with low error rates.
Casper uses causal graph neural networks to improve spatiotemporal time series imputation.
problem Imputing missing values in spatiotemporal time series with confounders and non-causal correlations.
method Casper introduces a novel Prompt Based Decoder (PBD) and Spatiotemporal Causal Attention (SCA) to block confounders and discover causal relationships.
result Casper outperforms baselines and effectively discovers causal relationships in spatiotemporal time series imputation.
Paper tackles unobserved confounding in human-AI collaborations.
problem Unobserved confounding undermines human-AI collaboration effectiveness.
method Combines sensitivity analysis from causal inference with AI-driven statistical modeling.
result Enhances robustness and reliability of collaborative outcomes.
A new algorithm CAP learns optimal policies from observational data with confounding bias and missing observations.
problem Offline contextual bandit with confounding bias and missing observations.
method CAP policy learning, forming reward function as solution of integral equation system, building confidence set, and greedily taking action with pessimism.
result Developed an upper bound to the suboptimality of CAP for the offline contextual bandit problem.
Spectral deconfounding improves machine learning models by reducing hidden confounding effects.
problem Machine learning models can be misled by hidden confounders, leading to unreliable predictions.
method Develops a nonlinear spectral deconfounding framework for gradient boosting that modifies boosting dynamics to slow down in confounding-aligned directions.
result Spectrally deconfounded boosting improves estimation of the target function under hidden confounding and is more scalable.
The paper uses neural networks to estimate treatment effects even with many confounders.
problem Estimating treatment effects with a growing number of confounders.
method General optimization framework using neural networks to approximate nuisance functions.
result Neural networks can handle a diverging number of confounders and alleviate the curse of dimensionality.
New method estimates treatment effects over time with unobserved confounders.
problem Estimating treatment effects from observational data with unobserved confounders.
method Sequential Deconfounder using Gaussian process latent variable model.
result Unbiased estimates of individualized treatment responses over time.
Estimates causal effects with selection bias and confounding using regression.
problem Estimating causal effects in presence of selection bias and confounding.
method Two-step regression estimator (TSR) that corrects for selection bias and accounts for confounding.
result TSR estimator reduces variance and is validated in simulations.
Unified framework for large-scale hypothesis testing with confounders.
problem Bias in large-scale hypothesis testing due to unmeasured confounders.
method Unified statistical estimation and inference framework that disentangles confounding effects and jointly estimates latent and primary effects.
result Effective Type-I error control and power in hypothesis testing.
In the integrative analyses of omics data, it is often of interest to extract data representation from one data type that best reflect its relations with another data type. This task is traditionally fulfilled by linear methods such as canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and partial least squares (PLS). However, infor…
A novel disentangled graph autoencoder improves treatment effect estimation from networked observational data.
problem Treatment effect estimation from observational data is challenging due to unconfoundedness assumption and latent confounders.
method Proposes a disentangled variational graph autoencoder to disentangle latent factors and enforce factor independence.
result Extensive experiments show superior performance compared to state-of-the-art approaches.
New method scores DAGs by identifying unobserved confounding.
problem Unobserved confounding complicates causal discovery.
method Score-based causal discovery algorithm that accounts for unobserved confounding.
result Sparse linear Gaussian DAGs can be recovered from observed data.
Generative multitask learning mitigates confounders causing targets.
problem Unobserved confounders causing targets but not inputs.
method Generative multitask learning (GMTL) modifies inference objective to remove joint target influence.
result Improved robustness to target shift across multitask learning methods.
LDP speeds up causal discovery by partitioning, improving VAS recall and runtime.
problem Hard causal discovery in nonparametric settings with exponential complexity.
method Local Discovery by Partitioning (LDP) for causal inference around exposure-outcome pairs.
result LDP yields less biased and more precise estimates than baseline methods.
Optimizes intervention design for causal discovery using integer programming.
problem Identifying causal structures from observational data due to confounding variables.
method Uses integer programming to design minimal intervention sets for causal structure identifiability.
result Provides exact and modular solutions adaptable to various experimental settings and constraints.
We address the problem of inferring the causal effect of an exposure on an outcome across space, using observational data. The data is possibly subject to unmeasured confounding variables which, in a standard approach, must be adjusted for by estimating a nuisance function. Here we develop a method that eliminates the …
A method estimates causal parameters using a latent variable recovery.
problem Estimating causal parameters in contexts with multiple causes and unobserved confounding.
method Substitute adjustment via recovery of latent variables.
result Substitute adjustment estimates adjusted regression parameters under certain conditions.
We prove the main rules of causal calculus (also called do-calculus) for i/o structural causal models (ioSCMs), a generalization of a recently proposed general class of non-/linear structural causal models that allow for cycles, latent confounders and arbitrary probability distributions. We also generalize adjustment c…
We introduce coroICA, confounding-robust independent component analysis, a novel ICA algorithm which decomposes linearly mixed multivariate observations into independent components that are corrupted (and rendered dependent) by hidden group-wise stationary confounding. It extends the ordinary ICA model in a theoretical…
One of the most fundamental problems in causal inference is the estimation of a causal effect when variables are confounded. This is difficult in an observational study, because one has no direct evidence that all confounders have been adjusted for. We introduce a novel approach for estimating causal effects that explo…
New method identifies causal relationships using proxy variables in the presence of unmeasured confounders.
problem Challenges in inferring causal relationships due to unmeasured confounding.
method Develops a general nonparametric approach using a single negative control outcome (NCO) and negative control exposure (NCE).
result Establishes a new identification result and proposes a kernel-based testing procedure.
Kernel methods identify treatment effects with unobserved confounding using negative controls.
problem Learning causal relationships with unmeasured confounding.
method Kernel ridge regression algorithms for nonparametric treatment effects.
result Uniform consistency and finite sample rates of convergence proved.
DEBIAS learns causal effects from psychiatric longitudinal data by optimizing outcome weights.
problem Causal inference challenges in psychiatric longitudinal data due to symptom heterogeneity and latent confounding.
method DEBIAS algorithm that optimizes outcome weights to maximize durable treatment effects and minimize confounding.
result DEBIAS consistently outperforms state-of-the-art methods in recovering causal effects for clinically interpretable composite outcomes.
CDM models counterfactual outcomes in longitudinal data with improved accuracy.
problem Predicting counterfactual outcomes in longitudinal data with complex time-dependent confounding.
method Causal Diffusion Model (CDM) using denoising diffusion architecture with relational self-attention.
result CDM outperforms state-of-the-art methods in generating full probabilistic distributions of counterfactual outcomes.