Multivariate multilevel spline models for parallel growth processes: application to weight and mean arterial pressure in pregnancy.

ABSTRACT: Growth models are commonly used in life course epidemiology to describe growth trajectories and their determinants or to relate particular patterns of change to later health outcomes. However, methods to analyse relationships between two or more change processes occurring in parallel, in particular to assess evidence for causal influences of change in one variable on subsequent changes in another, are less developed. We discuss linear spline multilevel models with a multivariate response and show how these can be used to relate rates of change in a particular time period in one variable to later rates of change in another variable by using the variances and covariances of individual-level random effects for each of the splines. We describe how regression coefficients can be calculated for

SUBMITTER: Macdonald-Wallis C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3569877 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature