Influence Function Based Variance Estimation and Missing Data Issues in Case-Cohort Studies

Recognizing that the efficiency in relative risk estimation for the Cox proportional hazards model is largely constrained by the total number of cases, Prentice (1986) proposed the case-cohort design in which covariates are measured on all cases and on a random sample of the cohort. Subsequent to Prentice, other methods of estimation and sampling have been proposed for these designs. We formalize an approach to variance estimation suggested by Barlow (1994), and derive a robust variance estimator based on the influence function. We consider the applicability of the variance estimator to all the proposed case-cohort estimators, and derive the influence function when known sampling probabilities in the estimators are replaced by observed sampling fractions. We discuss the modifications required when cases are missing covariate information. The missingness may occur by chance, and be completely at random; or may occur as part of the sampling design, and depend upon other observed covariates. We provide an adaptation of S-plus code that allows estimating influence function variances in the presence of such missing covariates. Using examples from our current case-cohort studies on esophageal and gastric cancer, we illustrate how our results our useful in solving design and analytic issues that arise in practice.     

Simplified Maximum Likelihood Inference Based on the Likelihood Decomposition for Missing Data

In this paper, we propose an estimation method when sample data are incomplete. We decompose the likelihood according to missing patterns and combine the estimators based on each likelihood weighting by the Fisher information ratio. This approach provides a simple way of estimating parameters, especially for non‐monotone missing data. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate this method.     

基于数据缺失率和缺失模式的多重插补误差研究

文章通过多重插补方法对不同缺失率和缺失模式的多变量缺失样本进行插补,研究了多重插补误差与缺失率和缺失模式的依赖关系。结果表明,当缺失率为0~15%时,多重插补误差与缺失率呈线性关系;当缺失率大于15%时,两者呈偏离线性关系。多重插补误差与缺失模式的方差均值比呈正相关性,当方差均值比越大时,误差也越大。     

Self-Consistency Estimation of Distributions Based on Truncated and Doubly Censored Survival Data with Applications to AIDS Cohort Studies

Gomez and Lagakos (1994) propose a nonparametric method for estimating the distribution of a survival time when the origin and end points defining the survival time suffer interval-censoring and right-censoring, respectively. In some situations, the end point also suffers interval-censoring as well as truncation. In this paper, we consider this general situation and propose a two-step estimation procedure for the estimation of the distribution of a survival time based on doubly interval-censored and truncated data. The proposed method generalizes the methods proposed by DeGruttola and Lagakos (1989) and Sun (1995) and is more efficient than that given in Gomez and Lagakos (1994). The approach is based on self-consistency equations. The method is illustrated by an analysis of an AIDS cohort study.