提出新方法估算干预后事件发生时间,解决真实世界中治疗时机的因果推断难题。
Synthetic Survival Control: Extending Synthetic Controls for "When-If" Decision
- 用其他单位的观测轨迹加权合成目标单位的反事实风险曲线
- 在多国癌症治疗数据中验证:新疗法使风险曲线下降,生存改善显著
- 适用于医学、经济、公共政策中的生存分析,结果可解释性强
从观察性数据中估计时间至事件结果的因果效应极具挑战,原因包括删失、样本量有限及非随机处理分配。现实场景中常需回答“若在某时点干预,事件何时发生”这类问题,尤其在治疗采纳异质且存在混杂的情况下。为此,本文提出合成生存控制(SSC)方法,用于面板数据下多个单位在不同时间段接受不同处理时的反事实风险轨迹估计。该方法将目标单位的反事实风险轨迹建模为其他单位观测轨迹的加权组合。通过引入具有低秩结构的面板框架,为因果估计量提供识别与有限样本保证。该框架在经典参数生存模型下自然成立。基于多国癌症治疗临床数据集验证,新疗法分阶段引入形成准实验环境。实证结果显示,获得新疗法的患者术后风险曲线显著低于合成对照组,表明生存获益。该框架广泛适用于医学、经济学与公共政策领域的生存分析,提供了一种通用且可解释的观察数据反事实推断工具。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Estimating causal effects on time-to-event outcomes from observational data is particularly challenging due to censoring, limited sample sizes, and non-random treatment assignment. The need for answering such "when-if" questions--how the timing of an event would change under a specified intervention--commonly arises in real-world settings with heterogeneous treatment adoption and confounding. To address these challenges, we propose Synthetic Survival Control (SSC) to estimate counterfactual hazard trajectories in a panel data setting where multiple units experience potentially different treatments over multiple periods. In such a setting, SSC estimates the counterfactual hazard trajectory for a unit of interest as a weighted combination of the observed trajectories from other units. To provide formal justification, we introduce a panel framework with a low-rank structure for causal survival analysis. Indeed, such a structure naturally arises under classical parametric survival models. Within this framework, for the causal estimand of interest, we establish identification and finite sample guarantees for SSC. We validate our approach using a multi-country clinical dataset of cancer treatment outcomes, where the staggered introduction of new therapies creates a quasi-experimental setting. Empirically, we find that access to novel treatments is associated with improved survival, as reflected by lower post-intervention hazard trajectories relative to their synthetic counterparts. Given the broad relevance of survival analysis across medicine, economics, and public policy, our framework offers a general and interpretable tool for counterfactual survival inference using observational data.
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