Tazare, John; Wyss, Richard; Franklin, Jessica M; Smeeth, Liam; Evans, Stephen JW; Wang, Shirley V; Schneeweiss, Sebastian; Douglas, Ian J; Williamson, Elizabeth; Gagne, Joshua J; (2020) Transparency of high-dimensional propensity score analyses: Guidance for diagnostics and reporting. In: CPE All Access 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/pds.5412
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Abstract
Purpose: The high-dimensional propensity score (HDPS) is a semi-automated procedure for confounder identification, prioritisation, and adjustment in large healthcare databases that requires investigators to specify data dimensions, prioritisation strategy, and tuning parameters. In practice, reporting of these decisions is inconsistent and this can undermine the transparency, and reproducibility of results obtained. We illustrate reporting tools, graphical displays, and sensitivity analyses to increase transparency and facilitate evaluation of the robustness of analyses involving HDPS. Methods: Using a study from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink that implemented HDPS we demonstrate the application of the proposed recommendations. Results: We identify 7 considerations surrounding the implementation of HDPS, such as the identification of data dimensions, method for code prioritisation and number of variables selected. Graphical diagnostic tools include assessing the balance of key confounders before and after adjusting for empirically-selected HDPS covariates and the identification of potentially influential covariates. Sensitivity analyses include varying the number of covariates selected and assessing the impact of covariates behaving empirically as instrumental variables. In our example, results were robust to both the number of covariates selected and the inclusion of potentially influential covariates. Furthermore, our HDPS models achieved good balance in key confounders. Conclusions: The data-adaptive approach of HDPS and the resulting benefits have led to its popularity as a method for confounder adjustment in pharmacoepidemiological studies. Reporting of HDPS analyses in practice may be improved by the considerations and tools proposed here to increase the transparency and reproducibility of study results.
Item Type | Conference or Workshop Item |
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Faculty and Department |
Academic Services & Administration > Directorate Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health > Dept of Medical Statistics Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health > Dept of Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology |
Research Centre | EHR Research Group |
Elements ID | 152978 |
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Filename: Tazare_etal_2022-Transparency-of-high-dimensional-propensity.pdf
Description: This is an author accepted manuscript version of an article accepted for publication, and following peer review. Please be aware that minor differences may exist between this version and the final version if you wish to cite from it.
Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
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