Using ecological propensity score to adjust for missing confounders in small area studies.

ABSTRACT: Small area ecological studies are commonly used in epidemiology to assess the impact of area level risk factors on health outcomes when data are only available in an aggregated form. However, the resulting estimates are often biased due to unmeasured confounders, which typically are not available from the standard administrative registries used for these studies. Extra information on confounders can be provided through external data sets such as surveys or cohorts, where the data are available at the individual level rather than at the area level; however, such data typically lack the geographical coverage of administrative registries. We develop a framework of analysis which combines ecological and individual level data from different sources to provide an adjusted estimate of area level

SUBMITTER: Wang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6230467 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature