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arXiv 2502.00501stat.MEcs.AIcs.LGstat.ML
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优化因果推断中的特征选择:用于无偏估计的三阶段计算框架

Optimizing Feature Selection in Causal Inference: A Three-Stage Computational Framework for Unbiased Estimation

Northeastern University(东北大学)

Tianyu Yang, Md. Noor-E-Alam

AI总结:

提出增强的三阶段计算框架优化因果推断中的特征选择,通过减少处理相关变量和虚假变量的影响来降低偏差与方差,并在合成数据和真实阿片类药物政策数据上验证了其优越性与可扩展性。

摘要:

特征选择是因果推断中获取因果量无偏估计的一项重要但具有挑战性的任务。在因果推断中,正确选择的特征不仅能显著减少实现匹配算法所需的时间,更重要的是,还能减少估计因果量时的偏差和方差。在因果推断中应用特征选择技术时,关键标准是选择那些在用于匹配时能够实现因果量无偏且稳健估计的变量。最近的研究表明,仅对处理相关变量进行平衡会引入偏差,而对虚假变量进行平衡会增加方差。为了解决这个问题,我们提出了一个增强的三阶段框架,与现有的因果推断最先进特征选择框架相比,该框架在选择所需的变量子集方面显示出显著改进,从而在估计因果量时具有更低的偏差和方差。我们使用最先进的合成数据在各种设置下评估了提出的框架,并在可行的计算时间内观察到优越的性能,确保了对大规模数据集的可扩展性。最后,为了证明我们提出的方法在大规模真实世界数据中的适用性,我们评估了一项与阿片类药物流行危机相关的重要美国医疗保健政策:阿片类药物使用障碍与自杀行为之间是否存在因果关系。

英文摘要:

Feature selection is an important but challenging task in causal inference for obtaining unbiased estimates of causal quantities. Properly selected features in causal inference not only significantly reduce the time required to implement a matching algorithm but, more importantly, can also reduce the bias and variance when estimating causal quantities. When feature selection techniques are applied in causal inference, the crucial criterion is to select variables that, when used for matching, can achieve an unbiased and robust estimation of causal quantities. Recent research suggests that balancing only on treatment-associated variables introduces bias while balancing on spurious variables increases variance. To address this issue, we propose an enhanced three-stage framework that shows a significant improvement in selecting the desired subset of variables compared to the existing state-of-the-art feature selection framework for causal inference, resulting in lower bias and variance in estimating the causal quantity. We evaluated our proposed framework using a state-of-the-art synthetic data across various settings and observed superior performance within a feasible computation time, ensuring scalability for large-scale datasets. Finally, to demonstrate the applicability of our proposed methodology using large-scale real-world data, we evaluated an important US healthcare policy related to the opioid epidemic crisis: whether opioid use disorder has a causal relationship with suicidal behavior.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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