Adjusting for unmeasured spatial confounding with distance adjusted propensity score matching.

ABSTRACT: Propensity score matching is a common tool for adjusting for observed confounding in observational studies, but is known to have limitations in the presence of unmeasured confounding. In many settings, researchers are confronted with spatially-indexed data where the relative locations of the observational units may serve as a useful proxy for unmeasured confounding that varies according to a spatial pattern. We develop a new method, termed distance adjusted propensity score matching (DAPSm) that incorporates information on units' spatial proximity into a propensity score matching procedure. We show that DAPSm can adjust for both observed and some forms of unobserved confounding and evaluate its performance relative to several other reasonable alternatives for incorporating spatial informat

SUBMITTER: Papadogeorgou G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6409420 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature