Imputation approaches for potential outcomes in causal inference
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The fundamental problem of causal inference is one of missing data, and specifically of missing potential outcomes: if potential outcomes were fully observed, then causal inference could be made trivially. Though often not discussed explicitly in the epidemiological literature, the connections between causal inference and missing data can provide additional intuition. METHODS: We demonstrate how we can approach causal inference in ways similar to how we address all problems of missing data, using multiple imputation and the parametric g-formula. RESULTS: We explain and demonstrate the use of these methods in example data, and discuss implications for more traditional approaches to causal inference. CONCLUSIONS: Though there are advantages and disadvantages to both multiple imputation and g-formula approaches, epidemiologists can benefit from thinking about their causal inference problems as problems of missing data, as such perspectives may lend new and clarifying insights to their analyses.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.073 | 0.186 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.007 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.015 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".