arXiv subjects

Zishu Zhan

Publications and source records attributed to Zishu Zhan.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Distributional Causal Mediation via Conditional Generative Modeling

Mediation analysis has traditionally focused on outcome-level summary contrasts, such as mean effects, which may obscure substantial distributional changes induced by complex and nonlinear causal mechanisms. We propose Distributional Causal Mediation Analysis (DCMA), a generative learning framework for identifying and estimating treatment effects on entire outcome distributions transmitted through multiple mediators. DCMA learns conditional generative models for the mediators and the outcome, recovering the relevant conditional distributions from observational data. Leveraging the identification formulas, it reconstructs interventional outcome distributions via Monte Carlo forward simulation by noise resampling, enabling the capture of both classical summary effects and rich distributional contrasts such as energy distance and the Wasserstein distance. Analytical error bounds are derived to decompose how estimation errors in the learned conditional models propagate to the reconstructed interventional outcome distributions. The empirical effectiveness of DCMA is demonstrated through numerical experiments and real-world data applications.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2025

Doubly robust estimation of optimal treatment regimes for survival data using an instrumental variable

In survival contexts, substantial literature exists on estimating optimal treatment regimes, where treatments are assigned based on personal characteristics to maximize the survival probability. These methods assume that a set of covariates is sufficient to deconfound the treatment-outcome relationship. However, this assumption can be limited in observational studies or randomized trials in which non-adherence occurs. Therefore, we propose a novel approach to estimating optimal treatment regimes when certain confounders are unobservable and a binary instrumental variable is available. Specifically, via a binary instrumental variable, we propose a semiparametric estimator for optimal treatment regimes by maximizing a Kaplan-Meier-like estimator of the survival function. Furthermore, to increase resistance to model misspecification, we construct novel doubly robust estimators. Since the estimators of the survival function are jagged, we incorporate kernel smoothing methods to improve performance. Under appropriate regularity conditions, the asymptotic properties are rigorously established. Moreover, the finite sample performance is evaluated through simulation studies. Finally, we illustrate our method using data from the National Cancer Institute's prostate, lung, colorectal, and ovarian cancer screening trial.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2023

On Estimation of Optimal Dynamic Treatment Regimes with Multiple Treatments for Survival Data-With Application to Colorectal Cancer Study

Dynamic treatment regimes (DTR) are sequential decision rules corresponding to several stages of intervention. Each rule maps patients' covariates to optional treatments. The optimal dynamic treatment regime is the one that maximizes the mean outcome of interest if followed by the overall population. Motivated by a clinical study on advanced colorectal cancer with traditional Chinese medicine, we propose a censored C-learning (CC-learning) method to estimate the dynamic treatment regime with multiple treatments using survival data. To address the challenges of multiple stages with right censoring, we modify the backward recursion algorithm in order to adapt to the flexible number and timing of treatments. For handling the problem of multiple treatments, we propose a framework from the classification perspective by transferring the problem of optimization with multiple treatment comparisons into an example-dependent cost-sensitive classification problem. With classification and regression tree (CART) as the classifier, the CC-learning method can produce an estimated optimal DTR with good interpretability. We theoretically prove the optimality of our method and numerically evaluate its finite sample performances through simulation. With the proposed method, we identify the interpretable tree treatment regimes at each stage for the advanced colorectal cancer treatment data from Xiyuan Hospital.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2022

Partial Replacement Imputation Estimation Method for Complex Missing Covariates in Additive Partially Linear Models

Missing data is a common problem in clinical data collection, which causes difficulty in the statistical analysis of such data. In this article, we consider the problem under a framework of a semiparametric partially linear model when observations are subject to missingness with complex patterns. If the correct model structure of the additive partially linear model is available, we propose to use a new imputation method called Partial Replacement IMputation Estimation (PRIME), which can overcome problems caused by incomplete data in the partially linear model. Also, we use PRIME in conjunction with model averaging (PRIME-MA) to tackle the problem of unknown model structure in the partially linear model. In simulation studies, we use various error distributions, sample sizes, missing data rates, covariate correlations, and noise levels, and PRIME outperforms other methods in almost all cases. With an unknown correct model structure, PRIME-MA has satisfactory performance in terms of prediction, while slightly worse than PRIME. Moreover, we conduct a study of influential factors in Pima Indians Diabetes data, which shows that our method performs better than the other models.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2021

Projective Resampling Imputation Mean Estimation Method for Missing Covariates Problem

Missing data is a common problem in clinical data collection, which causes difficulty in the statistical analysis of such data. To overcome problems caused by incomplete data, we propose a new imputation method called projective resampling imputation mean estimation (PRIME), which can also address ``the curse of dimensionality" problem in imputation with less information loss. We use various sample sizes, missing-data rates, covariate correlations, and noise levels in simulation studies, and all results show that PRIME outperformes other methods such as iterative least-squares estimation (ILSE), maximum likelihood (ML), and complete-case analysis (CC). Moreover, we conduct a study of influential factors in cardiac surgery-associated acute kidney injury (CSA-AKI), which show that our method performs better than the other models. Finally, we prove that PRIME has a consistent property under some regular conditions.

stat.ME↗