An efficient new “Partial” randomized response model

ABSTRACT

In this article, a new “Partial” randomized response model has been proposed. Its properties are studied both theoretically and empirically. The proposed model is proved to be more efficient than the randomized response models studied by Eichhorn and Hayre (1983 Eichhorn, B.H., Hayre, L.S. (1983). Scrambled randomized response methods for obtaining sensitive quantitative dada. J. Stat. Plann. Inference. 7:307–316.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and the “Partial” randomized response model.     

“Super-covariates”: Using predicted control group outcome as a covariate in randomized clinical trials

The power of randomized controlled clinical trials to demonstrate the efficacy of a drug compared with a control group depends not just on how efficacious the drug is, but also on the variation in patients' outcomes. Adjusting for prognostic covariates during trial analysis can reduce this variation. For this reason, the primary statistical analysis of a clinical trial is often based on regression models that besides terms for treatment and some further terms (e.g., stratification factors used in the randomization scheme of the trial) also includes a baseline (pre-treatment) assessment of the primary outcome. We suggest to include a “super-covariate”—that is, a patient-specific prediction of the control group outcome—as a further covariate (but not as an offset). We train a prognostic model or ensembles of such models on the individual patient (or aggregate) data of other studies in similar patients, but not the new trial under analysis. This has the potential to use historical data to increase the power of clinical trials and avoids the concern of type I error inflation with Bayesian approaches, but in contrast to them has a greater benefit for larger sample sizes. It is important for prognostic models behind “super-covariates” to generalize well across different patient populations in order to similarly reduce unexplained variability whether the trial(s) to develop the model are identical to the new trial or not. In an example in neovascular age-related macular degeneration we saw efficiency gains from the use of a “super-covariate”.     

A two-stage Land et al.'s randomized response model for estimating a rare sensitive attribute using Poisson distribution

The crux of this paper is to estimate the mean of the number of persons possessing a rare sensitive attribute based on the Mangat (1992 Mangat, N.S. (1992). Two stage reandomized response sampling procedure using unrelated question. J. Ind. Soc. Agric. Stat. 44(1):82–87. [Google Scholar]) randomization device by utilizing the Poisson distribution in survey sampling. It is shown that the proposed model is more efficient than Land et al. (2011 Land, M., Singh, S., Sedory, S.A. (2011). Estimation of a rare attribute using Poisson distribution. Statistics doi:10.1080/02331888.2010.524300[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) when the proportion of persons possessing a rare unrelated attribute is known. Properties of the proposed randomized response model have been studied along with recommendations. We have also extended the proposed model to stratified random sampling on the lines of Lee et al. (2013 Lee, G.S., Uhm, D., Kim, J.M. (2013). Estimation of a rare sensitive attribute in stratified sampling using Poisson distribution. Statistics 47(3):575–589.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). It has been also shown that the proposed estimator is better than Lee et al.'s (2013 Lee, G.S., Uhm, D., Kim, J.M. (2013). Estimation of a rare sensitive attribute in stratified sampling using Poisson distribution. Statistics 47(3):575–589.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) estimator. Numerical illustrations are also given in support of the present study.     

On the comparison of Horvitz–Thompson and Murthy's sampling strategies for estimating finite population proportions in direct and randomized response surveys

We consider the problem of unbiased estimation of a finite population proportion and compare the relative efficiency of the unequal probability sampling strategies due to Horvitz and Thompson (1952 Horvitz, D.G., Thompson, D.J. (1952). A generalization of sampling without replacement. J Am Stat Assoc. 47:663–685.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Murthy (1957 Murthy, M.N. (1957). Ordered and unordered estimators in sampling without replacement. Sankhya 18:379–390. [Google Scholar]) under a super-population model. It is shown that the model expected variance is smaller for the Murthy's (1957 Murthy, M.N. (1957). Ordered and unordered estimators in sampling without replacement. Sankhya 18:379–390. [Google Scholar]) strategy both when these two sampling strategies are based on data obtained from (i) a direct survey, and (ii) a randomized response (RR) survey employing some RR technique following a general RR model.