Bespoke Instruments: A New Tool for Addressing Unmeasured Confounders

Details

• Personal Author:
  Richardson DB ; Tchetgen EJ
• Description:
  Suppose that an investigator is interested in quantifying an exposure-disease causal association in a setting where the exposure, disease, and some potential confounders of the association of interest have been measured. However, there remains concern about residual confounding of the association of interest by unmeasured confounders. We propose an approach to account for residual bias due to unmeasured confounders. The proposed approach uses a measured confounder to derive a "bespoke" instrumental variable that is tailored to the study population and is used to control for bias due to residual confounding. The approach may provide a useful tool for assessing and accounting for bias due to residual confounding. We provide a formal description of the conditions for identification of causal effects, illustrate the method using simulations, and provide an empirical example concerning mortality among Japanese atomic bomb survivors. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Cohort Studies Epidemiology Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Analytical Instruments Author Keywords: Cohort Studies Cohort Studies Exposure Assessment Instrumental Variables Regression Analysis Statistical Quality Control Unmeasured Confounding
• ISSN:
  0002-9262
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; North Carolina ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  191
• Issue:
  5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20066025
• Citation:
  Am J Epidemiol 2022 May; 191(5):939-947
• Contact Point Address:
  Dr. David Richardson, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Program in Public Health, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697
• Email:
  david.richardson@uci.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Performing Organization:
  University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20190801
• Source Full Name:
  American Journal of Epidemiology
• End Date:
  20220731
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:25c8e32fdb7cc3259fda27e9a47adcae616a51f4ab66c9af45a3dbbf991fe31b434c9d25eea5297bd8862f0bcc54469cff0d5885a9dcac20957e5af2a3df7179
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/209110/cdc_209110_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 246.25 KB ]