The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics (응용통계연구)

The Korean Statistical Society (한국통계학회)
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Estimating Average Causal Effect in Latent Class Analysis

잠재범주분석을 이용한 원인적 영향력 추론에 관한 연구

  • 박가영 (고려대학교 통계학과) ;
  • 정환 (고려대학교 통계학과)
  • Received : 2014.08.25
  • Accepted : 2014.12.08
  • Published : 2014.12.31
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Abstract

Unlike randomized trial, statistical strategies for inferring the unbiased causal relationship are required in the observational studies. Recently, new methods for the causal inference in the observational studies have been proposed such as the matching with the propensity score or the inverse probability treatment weighting. They have focused on how to control the confounders and how to evaluate the effect of the treatment on the result variable. However, these conventional methods are valid only when the treatment variable is categorical and both of the treatment and the result variables are directly observable. Research on the causal inference can be challenging in part because it may not be possible to directly observe the treatment and/or the result variable. To address this difficulty, we propose a method for estimating the average causal effect when both of the treatment and the result variables are latent. The latent class analysis has been applied to calculate the propensity score for the latent treatment variable in order to estimate the causal effect on the latent result variable. In this work, we investigate the causal effect of adolescents delinquency on their substance use using data from the 'National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health'.

관찰연구를 이용하여 인과관계를 추론할 경우 무작위 통제시험과는 달리 교란변수로 인한 편향을 제어하기 위한 통계적 전략이 필요하다. 최근에는 성향점수(propensity score) 를 이용한 짝짓기나 원인변수의 역확률을 가중치로 사용하는 주변구조모형이 제안되어 사용되고 있다. 이러한 인과관계 추론은 처치(treatment)가 명확히 주어진 경우에 교란변수를 통제하고 그 처치가 결과에 미치는 영향을 평가하는 방법에 초점이 맞추어져 있다. 하지만 기존의 방법의 경우 원인변수인 처치가 직접관측이 가능한 범주형 변수이고 결과변수 또한 직접관측이 가능한 변수인 경우에만 사용할 수 있는 한계를 갖고 있다. 본 연구에서는 원인변수인 처치와 결과변수의 결괏값의 직접적인 관측이 어려운 경우, 측정오차를 고려한 잠재범주모형(latent class analysis)의 변수로 모형화 함으로써 잠재범주 간의 원인적 영향력을 추정하는 방법을 제시하고자 한다. 그리고 미국의 The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health 자료를 이용하여, 약물사용의 잠재범주에 대한 청소년기의 비행(delinquency)이라는 잠재범주의 원인적 영향력을 추정하였다.

Keywords

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