Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34949904›Full record

ArticleJournal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, (Statistics in Society)2021

A Bayesian multivariate factor analysis model for evaluating an intervention by using observational time series data on multiple outcomes.

Pantelis Samartsidis, Shaun R Seaman, Silvia Montagna, André Charlett, Matthew Hickman, Daniela De Angelis

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, (Statistics in Society), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Fast Variational Inference for Bayesian Factor Analysis in Single and Multi-Study Settings.Journal of computational and graphical statistics : a joint publication of American Statistical Association, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Interface Foundation of North America · 2025
    Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Pantelis SamartsidisUniversity of Cambridge, UK.
Shaun R SeamanUniversity of Cambridge, UK.
Silvia MontagnaUniversity of Turin, Italy.
André CharlettPublic Health England, London, UK.
Matthew HickmanUniversity of Bristol, UK.
Daniela De AngelisUniversity of Cambridge, UK.

Funding

Medical Research Council MC_UU_00002/10Medical Research Council MC_UU_00002/11
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

A problem that is frequently encountered in many areas of scientific research is that of estimating the effect of a non-randomized binary intervention on an outcome of interest by using time series data on units that received the intervention ('treated') and units that did not ('controls'). One popular estimation method in this setting is based on the factor analysis (FA) model. The FA model is fitted to the preintervention outcome data on treated units and all the outcome data on control units, and the counterfactual treatment-free post-intervention outcomes of the former are predicted from the fitted model. Intervention effects are estimated as the observed outcomes minus these predicted counterfactual outcomes. We propose a model that extends the FA model for estimating intervention effects by jointly modelling the multiple outcomes to exploit shared variability, and assuming an auto-regressive structure on factors to account for temporal correlations in the outcome. Using simulation studies, we show that the method proposed can improve the precision of the intervention effect estimates and achieve better control of the type I error rate (compared with the FA model), especially when either the number of preintervention measurements or the number of control units is small. We apply our method to estimate the effect of stricter alcohol licensing policies on alcohol-related harms.

Indexed as

Causal inferenceFactor analysisIntervention evaluationPanel data

Identifiers

PMID34949904
PMCPMC7612111

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.