arXiv:2502.05295cs.LGstat.ME2025-02NeurIPS被引 5

GST-UNet可精准估算时空干预下的因果效应,尤其适合处理动态混杂因素。

GST-UNet: A Neural Framework for Spatiotemporal Causal Inference with Time-Varying Confounding

  • 基于U-Net与迭代G-computation构建神经框架,显式建模时间变化的混杂因素
  • 在2018年加州山火数据中验证,能有效估计烟雾暴露对呼吸住院的影响
  • 适用于数据稀疏场景,为公共卫生和环境政策提供可靠因果推断工具

从时空观测数据中估计因果效应在公共卫生、环境科学和政策评估中至关重要,但随机实验常不可行。现有方法或依赖强结构假设,或难以应对干扰、空间混杂、时间延续性及随时间变化的混杂因素——即协变量受过去干预影响,并反过来影响未来干预。我们提出GST-UNet(G-computation Spatio-Temporal UNet),一个理论严谨的神经框架,结合基于U-Net的时空编码器与基于回归的迭代G-computation,用于估计复杂干预序列下各位置的潜在结果。该模型显式调整时间变化的混杂因素,捕捉非线性时空依赖关系,支持在数据稀缺条件下仅凭单一观测轨迹进行有效因果推断。我们在合成实验和真实世界分析中验证其有效性,研究了2018年加州山火期间野火烟雾暴露与呼吸系统住院率的关系。结果表明,GST-UNet是一个原理清晰且可直接应用的时空因果推断框架,推动了政策相关与科学领域中的可靠估计。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Estimating causal effects from spatiotemporal observational data is essential in public health, environmental science, and policy evaluation, where randomized experiments are often infeasible. Existing approaches, however, either rely on strong structural assumptions or fail to handle key challenges such as interference, spatial confounding, temporal carryover, and time-varying confounding -- where covariates are influenced by past treatments and, in turn, affect future ones. We introduce GST-UNet (G-computation Spatio-Temporal UNet), a theoretically grounded neural framework that combines a U-Net-based spatiotemporal encoder with regression-based iterative G-computation to estimate location-specific potential outcomes under complex intervention sequences. GST-UNet explicitly adjusts for time-varying confounders and captures non-linear spatial and temporal dependencies, enabling valid causal inference from a single observed trajectory in data-scarce settings. We validate its effectiveness in synthetic experiments and in a real-world analysis of wildfire smoke exposure and respiratory hospitalizations during the 2018 California Camp Fire. Together, these results position GST-UNet as a principled and ready-to-use framework for spatiotemporal causal inference, advancing reliable estimation in policy-relevant and scientific domains.

因果推断时空建模神经网络公共卫生

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