Causal-Inference

Causal inference for heritable phenotypic risk factors using heterogeneous genetic instruments

We greatly improve the applicability of MR-RAPS. The new GRAPPLE framework can handle multiple exposures and overlapping exposure and outcomes GWAS, and is able to detect multiple pleiotropic pathways. A large-scale experiment was done to understand …

Causal inference: An introduction

Introduction to causal inference for social science PhD students.

ivmodel: An R package for inference and sensitivity analysis of instrumental variables models with one endogenous variable

Vignette of an R package for instrumental variable regression.

Profile-likelihood Bayesian model averaging for two-sample summary data Mendelian randomization in the presence of horizontal pleiotropy

We propose a Bayesian model averaging method to account for the uncertainty about instrument validity in Mendelian randomization. This model is extended to allow for a large fraction of SNPs violating the InSIDE assumption.

Using sparsity to overcome unmeasured confounding: Two examples

Sparsity is often used to improve the interpretability of a statistical analysis and/or reduce the variance of a statistical estimator. This talk will explore another aspect—the utility of sparsity in model identifiability through two problems …

Sample-constrained partial identification with application to selection bias

Many partial identification problems can be characterized by the optimal value of a function over a set where both the function and set need to be estimated by empirical data. Despite some progress for convex problems, statistical inference in this …

A Mendelian randomization study of the role of lipoprotein subfractions in coronary artery disease

We apply the MR-RAPS method we developed in previous articles to infer the potential causal role of lipoprotein subfractions in CAD. This is motivated by the finding in our earlier IJE paper that the association between genetically-determined HDL-C and CAD is heterogeneous according to instrument strength. In this study, We find that HDL subfraction traits, unlike LDL and VLDL subfractions, appear to have heterogeneous effects on coronary artery disease according to particle size. The concentration of medium HDL particles may have a protective effect on CAD that is independent of traditional lipid factors.