Transportability of Trial Results Using Inverse Odds of Sampling Weights

Increasingly, the statistical and epidemiologic literature is focusing beyond issues of internal validity and turning its attention to questions of external validity. Here, we discuss some of the challenges of transporting a causal effect from a randomized trial to a specific target population. We p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of epidemiology Vol. 186; no. 8; p. 1010
Main Authors: Westreich, Daniel, Edwards, Jessie K, Lesko, Catherine R, Stuart, Elizabeth, Cole, Stephen R
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 15.10.2017
Subjects:
Bias
Causality
Epidemiologic Methods
Humans
Probability
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
Reproducibility of Results
Statistics as Topic
generalizability
transportability
epidemiologic methods
causal inference
external validity
ISSN:1476-6256, 1476-6256
Online Access:Get more information
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Summary:Increasingly, the statistical and epidemiologic literature is focusing beyond issues of internal validity and turning its attention to questions of external validity. Here, we discuss some of the challenges of transporting a causal effect from a randomized trial to a specific target population. We present an inverse odds weighting approach that can easily operationalize transportability. We derive these weights in closed form and illustrate their use with a simple numerical example. We discuss how the conditions required for the identification of internally valid causal effects are translated to apply to the identification of externally valid causal effects. Estimating effects in target populations is an important goal, especially for policy or clinical decisions. Researchers and policy-makers should therefore consider use of statistical techniques such as inverse odds of sampling weights, which under careful assumptions can transport effect estimates from study samples to target populations.
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ISSN:1476-6256
1476-6256
DOI:10.1093/aje/kwx164