응용통계연구 (The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics)

  • 제32권2호
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  • Pages.173-185
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  • 2019
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  • 1225-066X(pISSN)
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  • 2383-5818(eISSN)
한국통계학회 (The Korean Statistical Society)
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비실험 자료로부터의 인과 추론: 핵심 개념과 최근 동향

Causal inference from nonrandomized data: key concepts and recent trends

  • 투고 : 2018.12.03
  • 심사 : 2019.01.22
  • 발행 : 2019.04.30
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⟨ 이전 논문 다음 논문 ⟩

초록

과학적 연구에서 핵심적인 연구 주제 또는 가설은 대부분 인과적 질문(causal question)을 포함한다. 예를 들어, 전염병 예방을 위한 치료법의 효과 연구, 특정 정책의 시행으로 인한 효용(utility)의 평가에 대한 연구, 특정 사용자를 대상으로 노출된 광고의 종류에 따른 광고의 효과성에 대한 연구는 모두 인과 관계(causal relationship)의 추론이 요구된다. 이러한 인과 관계를 다루는 통계적 인과 추론(statistical causal inference)의 주요 관심사 중 하나는 모집단에 일종의 개입(정책 혹은 처치)을 적용한 후 개입의 효과를 정확하게 추정하는 것이다. 인과 추론은 임상실험과 정책결정에서 주로 이용되었으나, 이른바 빅데이터 시대의 도래로 가용한 관측자료가 폭발적으로 증가하였고 이로 인하여 인과 추론에 대한 잠재적 응용가치와 수요가 지속적으로 증가하고 있다. 하지만 가용한 대부분의 자료는 임의실험 기반의 자료와 달리 개입이 임의로 분배되지 않은 비실험 관측자료이다. 따라서, 본 논문은 비실험 관측자료로부터 개입의 효과를 추정하기 위한 인과 추론의 핵심 개념과 최근의 연구동향을 소개하고자 한다. 이를 위하여 본문에서는 먼저 개입의 효과를 Neyman-Rubin의 잠재 결과(potential outcome) 모형으로 나타내고, 개입의 효과를 추정하는 여러 접근법 중 특히 성향점수(propensity score) 기반 추정법과 회귀모형 기반 추정법을 중점적으로 소개한다. 최근 연구동향으로는 (1) 평균 효과 크기 추정을 넘어선 개인별 효과 크기의 추정, (2) 효과크기 추정에 있어서 자료 규모의 증대로 인한 차원의 저주가 야기하는 난제들과 이에 대한 해결방안들, (3) 복합적 인과관계를 반영하기 위한 Pearl의 구조적 인과 모형(structural causal model) 및 잠재 결과 모형과의 비교의 3가지 주제로 구분하여 소개한다.

Causal questions are prevalent in scientific research, for example, how effective a treatment was for preventing an infectious disease, how much a policy increased utility, or which advertisement would give the highest click rate for a given customer. Causal inference theory in statistics interprets those questions as inferring the effect of a given intervention (treatment or policy) in the data generating process. Causal inference has been used in medicine, public health, and economics; in addition, it has received recent attention as a tool for data-driven decision making processes. Many recent datasets are observational, rather than experimental, which makes the causal inference theory more complex. This review introduces key concepts and recent trends of statistical causal inference in observational studies. We first introduce the Neyman-Rubin's potential outcome framework to formularize from causal questions to average treatment effects as well as discuss popular methods to estimate treatment effects such as propensity score approaches and regression approaches. For recent trends, we briefly discuss (1) conditional (heterogeneous) treatment effects and machine learning-based approaches, (2) curse of dimensionality on the estimation of treatment effect and its remedies, and (3) Pearl's structural causal model to deal with more complex causal relationships and its connection to the Neyman-Rubin's potential outcome model.

키워드

GCGHDE_2019_v32n2_173_f0001.png 이미지

Figure 4.1. 구조적 인과모형식에 대응되는 방향성 비순환 그래프들. 좌측: (4.2), 우측: (4.3).

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