通过建模时序潜在混杂,实现长期因果推断的准确识别。
Long-term Causal Inference via Modeling Sequential Latent Confounding
- 提出时序潜变量混杂的函数关系假设,扩展已有方法适用范围。
- 理论证明在该假设下可识别长期因果效应,且估计器具渐近性质。
- 适用于多阶段短期观测数据的长期因果分析,适合医学、社会学研究者。
长期因果推断在多个科学领域中具有重要意义但面临挑战。为解决长期观察研究中的潜在混杂问题,现有方法依赖短期实验数据。Ghassami等人提出基于条件加性等混杂偏差(CAECB)假设的方法,该假设认为短期结果与长期结果的混杂偏差相等,从而可识别长期混杂偏差与因果效应。然而,该假设仅适用于存在单一短期结果且与长期结果量纲一致的情形。本文提出一种新假设,将CAECB扩展至时序短期结果场景,假设不同时间点的混杂偏差之间存在函数关系。在此基础上,理论上建立了长期因果效应的可识别性。基于此识别结果,我们设计了估计器并对其渐近性质进行了理论分析。大量实验验证了理论结果,并展示了所提方法的有效性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Long-term causal inference is an important but challenging problem across various scientific domains. To solve the latent confounding problem in long-term observational studies, existing methods leverage short-term experimental data. Ghassami et al. propose an approach based on the Conditional Additive Equi-Confounding Bias (CAECB) assumption, which asserts that the confounding bias in the short-term outcome is equal to that in the long-term outcome, so that the long-term confounding bias and the causal effects can be identified. While effective in certain cases, this assumption is limited to scenarios where there is only one short-term outcome with the same scale as the long-term outcome. In this paper, we introduce a novel assumption that extends the CAECB assumption to accommodate temporal short-term outcomes. Our proposed assumption states a functional relationship between sequential confounding biases across temporal short-term outcomes, under which we theoretically establish the identification of long-term causal effects. Based on the identification result, we develop an estimator and conduct a theoretical analysis of its asymptotic properties. Extensive experiments validate our theoretical results and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
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