Introduction to propertee

In propertee: Standardization-Based Effect Estimation with Optional Prior Covariance Adjustment

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>"
)
#devtools::load_all("~/repositories/_r/propertee/")
library(propertee)

Main Features

The propertee package, Prognostic Regression Offsets with Propagation of ERrors (for Treatment Effect Estimation), facilitates direct adjustment or standardization for experiments and observational studies, with the option of using a separately fitted prognostic regression model for covariance adjustment. Propertee calls for a self-standing specification of a study's design and treatment allocations, using these to create weights needed to align treatment and control samples for estimation of treatment effects averaged across a common standard population, with standard errors that appropriately reflect the study design. For covariance adjustment it enables offsetting the outcome against predictions from a dedicated covariance model, with standard error calculations propagating error as appropriate from the covariance model.

The main workflow consists of two main steps and one optional step:

1. Encode the study's design, including the unit of assignment, treatment status of each unit of assignment, and block membership information as appropriate, in a StudySpecification object. This is accomplished with the obs_spec(), rct_spec() or rd_spec() functions.
2. Optionally, fit a covariate adjustment model. This is done with any of a number of modeling functions external to propertee, for example lm() or glm() from the stats package, or lmrob from the robustbase package.
3. Use lm() to contrast the separately reweighted treatment and control groups, incorporating optional covariance adjustments as an offset to lm(). The StudySpecification is unobtrusively retained, as is error propagation from the optional covariance adjustment, for use in subsequent standard error calculations. This is done using the lmitt() function, which either takes and enriches a fitted lm or, in the more fully supported usage, internally calls lm() to itself create a directly adjusted contrast of treatment conditions.

Example Data

The example dataset comes from the state of Tennessee's Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) experiment. Students were randomly assigned to three possible classroom conditions: small (13 to 17 students per teacher), regular class (22 to 25 students per teacher), and regular-with-aide class (22 to 25 students with a full-time teacher's aide).

data("STARplus")
table(STARplus$cond_at_entry)

For simplicity for this first example, we will examine a single binary treatment - "small" classrooms versus "regular" and "regular+aide" classrooms.

STARplus$cond_small <- STARplus$cond_at_entry == "small"
table(STARplus$cond_small)

After this basic example, we will see how propertee makes it easy to handle non-binary treatment variables by introducing dichotomys.

The outcome of interest is a reading score at the end of kindergarten.

summary(STARplus$g1treadss)

We first take the random assignment scheme to have been either complete or Bernoulli randomization of students, separately by school. (Later we'll change this to the more realistic assumption of complete or Bernoulli randomization, separately by school and year of entry into the study.) Accordingly, experimental blocks are given by the school_at_entry variable.

length(unique(STARplus$school_at_entry))
head(table(STARplus$school_at_entry))

We need a unique identifier for the unit by which treatment was allocated. STAR treatments were assigned to students, as opposed to classrooms or other aggregates of students; accordingly we need a unique identifier per student. The stdntid variable fills this role.

length(unique(STARplus$stdntid))
head(STARplus$stdntid)

A Basic Example

Defining the StudySpecification

The three _spec functions (rct_spec(), obj_spec(), and rd_spec()) operate similarly. The first argument is the most important, and encodes all the specification information through the use of a formula. The left-hand side of the formula identifies the treatment variable. The right-hand side of the formula consists of the following potential pieces of information:

1. unit_of_assignment(): This identifies the variable(s) which indicate the units of assignment. This is required for all specifications. The alias uoa() can be used in its place.
2. block(): The identifies the variable(s) which contain block information. Optional.
3. forcing(): In regression discontinuity specifications (rd_spec()), this identifies the variable(s) which contain forcing information.

To define a StudySpecification in our example:

spec <- obs_spec(cond_small ~ unit_of_assignment(stdntid) + block(school_at_entry),
                  data = STARplus, na.fail = FALSE)
summary(spec)

Should additional variables be needed to identify the unit of assignment, block, or forcing, they can be included. Had the variable identifying the years in which participants entered the study been available, for example, we might have identified the experimental blocks as combinations of school and year of study entry, rather than as the school alone. To do this we would pass block(year_at_entry, school_at_entry), rather than block(school_at_entry), in the above.

Estimating the treatment effect

The main function for estimating treatment effects is the lmitt() function. It takes in three main required arguments:

1. A formula specifying the outcome and the desired treatment effect.
2. The data set containing the outcome information.
3. A StudySpecification.

Note that the data set does not need to be the same data set which generated the StudySpecification; it does however need to include the same variables to identify the units of assignment. (If the variable names differ, the by= argument can be used to link them, though we recommend renaming to reduce the likelihood of issues.)

For example, you may have one dataset containing school-level information, and a separate dataset containing student-level information. Assume school is the unit of assignment. While you could of course merge those two data-sets, propertee can instead use the school-level data to define the StudySpecification, and the student-level data to estimate the treatment effect.

The formula entering lmitt() can take on one of two forms:

y ~ 1

will estimate the main treatment effect on outcome variable y, and

y ~ x

will estimate subgroup specific treatment effects for each level of x for the outcome y, if x is categorical. For continuous x, a main effect and a treatment-x interaction effect is estimated.

Therefore, to estimate the treatment effect in our example, we can run:

te <- lmitt(g1treadss ~ 1, data = STARplus, specification = spec)
summary(te)

The data includes ethnicity; we can estimate subgroup effects by ethnicity:

te_s <- lmitt(g1treadss ~ race, data = STARplus, specification = spec)
summary(te_s)

Including specification weights

Study specification weights can be easily included in this estimation. propertee supports average treatment effect (ATE) and effect of the treatment on the treated (ETT) weights.

To include one of the weights, simply include the weights = "ate" or weights = "ett" argument to lmitt():

lmitt(g1treadss ~ 1, data = STARplus, specification = spec, weights = "ate")
lmitt(g1treadss ~ 1, data = STARplus, specification = spec, weights = "ett")

Internally, these call the ate() or ett() functions which can be used directly.

head(ate(spec, data = STARplus))

When included inside lmitt(), you do not need to specify any additional arguments to ate() or ett(), enabling easy functions of weights. For example if you had some other weight variable, say wgt, you could include weights = wgt*ate() in the lmitt() call.

Covariance Adjustment models

By itself, lmitt() does not allow for other covariates; e.g. something like lmitt(y ~ 1 + control_var,... will fail. To adjust for covariates, a separate covariate model should be fit. Any model which supports a predict() function should work.

camod <- lm(g1treadss ~ gender * dob + race, data = STARplus)

The cov_adj() function can be used to process the covariance adjustment model and produce the required values; and its output can be passed as an offset=.

lmitt(g1treadss ~ 1, data = STARplus, specification = spec,
      weights = "ate", offset = cov_adj(camod))

Similarly to the weight functions, cov_adj() attempts to locate the correct arguments (in this case, mainly the data= argument) to use in the model command; while cov_adj() does fall back to using the data which is in the covariance model, its safer to use the newdata= argument if calling cov_adj() outside of the model.

head(cov_adj(camod, newdata = STARplus))

Also, similarly to weights, cov_adj() can be used in normal modeling commands as well.

lm(g1treadss ~ cond_small, data = STARplus, weights = ate(spec),
   offset = cov_adj(camod))

Absorbing Blocks

If fixed effects for blocks are desired, which can be absorbed away to avoid estimating, the absorb=TRUE argument can be passed.

lmitt(g1treadss ~ 1, data = STARplus, specification = spec, absorb = TRUE)

propertee documentation built on Aug. 22, 2025, 1:09 a.m.